The Fifth Agent
by ConstantlyWriting
Summary: Madison Morgan. The younger sister of Dan Morgan. The youngest member of the new M.I High team. Follow Madison and her adventures alongside the rest of the new M.I High team as they tackle bad guys and keep their country safe. Welcome, to M.I High.
1. The Fall of SKUL Part 1

She runs and vaults herself over the cobblestone wall, landing with both feet planted firmly on the other side. She doesn't waste any time and continues to run from her chasers, sprinting right into a scrap disposal yard. Her feet slam against the dirt and gravel as she runs at a remarkably fast pace. All of those parkour training sessions were really paying off.

"Shoot!"

She stops short when she reaches a fence wrapped in barbed wire. She can climb, but climbing barbed wire would hurt like hell. She turns around as the men in black suits approach, a pair of handcuffs in one of their hands.

 _I've got to try and talk my way out of this one._

"Hello, gentlemen." She motions up to the grey sky, "Not the best weather today, is it? What would you expect though, am I right? It is England we live in."

The men stare back at her blankly, not one of them saying something back in response. She lets out a steady laugh, making sure that they can't sense her uneasiness.

"Well, I guess I should get going. It's been nice talking to you, gentlemen."

She makes a move to walk past them when one of them latches onto her arm; she sighs, "Not gonna lie, I should have saw that one coming."

She swings her free arm around and smashes it into the side of her captors neck, causing him to release his grip on her and allow her to take a few steps back. She does and, instead of running, she raises her fists and moves into a fighting stance. The first man charges at her and swings his fist for her head. She quickly ducks out of the way of his attack and punches at his stomach as hard as she can; it doesn't do much, but it holds him back for a few seconds. The third man begins to approach her so she kicks her right leg out, but he grabs onto her foot and keeps a firm grip on it. She panics for a few moments, but she takes her chances and kicks forwards as hard as she can. The man drops her foot and stumbles back slightly, causing him to knock into one of the men, who is stood directly behind him. She's about to take her opportunity and make a break for it when she feels something press into the side of her neck. It doesn't hurt, but it makes her feel very sleepy. That's the last thing she feels before she passes out.

* * *

"Maddie. Maddie, wake up."

She groans. She recognises that voice. She's heard it her entire life. She tries to say his name, but it just comes out as another groan.

"Hey, it's okay. You're fine. You're safe." He reassures in a soft voice, letting out a small laugh, "In fact, I think you're gonna find this really cool."

She slowly opens her eyes, thankful that there is not much light where she is. Wherever that may be, it is dim and smells faintly of old toilet. She puts that aside and slowly pushes herself up off of the metallic surface she is laying upon, shifting around until she is in a comfortable sitting position.

"You okay?"

She looks over at him and nods, but becomes cautious again when she sees another girl and boy, who look around his age, stood behind him. The girl speaks up first with a strong accent, although she's not exactly sure where it's from. Scotland, perhaps?

"How do you know her?"

Dan looks over at the girl, "She's my little sister."

Maddie groans and rolls her eyes, "You know that I hate it when you call me little."

"Well, he's not wrong." The other boy chimes in, Madison shooting a glare over in his direction, "What year are you in? Eight?"

"Nine, actually. I'll be fourteen this year." She switches her attention over to her brother, lightly shoving his shoulder, "Which is why I don't want you to call me little."

Dan smiles and opens his mouth to respond when a lady, possibly in her mid 30's to early 40's, walks over and speaks up instead.

"Madison Morgan?"

Maddie looks at her cautiously, "Who wants to know?"

"My name is Stella Knight. I work for a division called MI9. Have you ever heard of it?" Madison nods back, Stella seemingly happy that she has knowledge of her division, "The 21st century faces a new kind of threat. Old school spies have had their day, and MI9 must form a new team of skilled undercover agents."

"Okay...and what does all of that have to do with me, exactly? Or my brother," She motions to the boy and the girl stood behind Dan, "Or these two random kids?"

"Random?!"

Stella ignores the other girl and opens up a file in her hands, looking down at it and reading it aloud, "Madison Morgan. Trained in Parkour and Freerunning. Self taught in five martial arts styles. Multilingual and proficient in problem solving." Stella closes the file and looks back at Madison, "It sounds like you have quite the skill set."

Maddie shrugs, "Don't you have adults that can do all of those things?"

"This new team will consist of young agents. Madison, we want you to be a part of that team."

"Are you being serious?" She looks over at her brother for reassurance, "Dan?"

"It's all true, Maddie."

Madison looks back to Stella, taking a few moments to think everything through. Is this whole situation confusing? Yes. Is it slightly terrifying? Definitely. But is it all pretty awesome? Without a shadow of doubt. And that's another for her to make her decision.

"Okay. Yeah, I'm in."

* * *

"Dan, I'm serious. I had to look after a goldfish once and the cat ate it. What if we have to look after the Prime Minister?" Aneisha says as the four spies in training walk towards the front entrance to the school, worry evident in her voice.

"Well, then I guess the Prime Minister is stuffed, Neish." Madison attempt at a joke only seems to worry Aneisha more. She decides to switch to a more solemn and comforting response, "We'll be fine, Aneisha. We've been training all summer. Besides, if anything, I think we deserve a mission already. We haven't had a single one yet."

"Yeah, maybe keep all of that stuff to yourself, sis." Dan pipes in, "Remember, we can't let anyone know about any of this. Not even Mum and Dad."

"Yeah, yeah. I know, Dan."

"Yeah, and don't tell anyone we're friends either." Tom adds, not looking up from the handheld game system in his hand.

"Yeah. Might keep that to myself."

The four kids pause at the sight of the Deputy Principal, McNab, walking out of the front door to the school, leading a band of marching students. They halt on his command, and Madison can't help but feel unnerved at the sight of the strict Deputy Principal. Boy, he sure is mean.

"As some of you may know, Bleakwood is getting a new headmaster today. Given that they never gave that job to me...I can only imagine how strict and exacting he must be."

Maddie watches in shock and slight amusement as a kindly looking man runs over with his bike, slightly out of breath but smily all the same. It's definitely an...interesting contrast in comparison to the harshness of McNab. She can't deny that she's confused as to why this man has been hired. She figured that the school board would choose someone as strict, if not stricter, than McNab. This guy's not even on the same level as McNab. He's far too nice.

"MI9 arranged for someone I know."

Maddie looks over at Frank, who is stood beside Aneisha, "How do you know him?"

"Let's just say that he's an old acquaintance."

Maddie looks over at Aneisha, who just shrugs back in response. She sighs before turning back to the strange man, who is telling all of the students about a dream where he turned up to school wearing only his underpants or something along those lines.

"Flatley?"

The kindly man nods to McNab's question, "Kenneth Flatley, headmaster."

"Mr McNab. Deputy headmaster." McNab says bluntly. It's clear to everyone that he is not happy that Mr Flatley is here, "And if I may be quite frank..."

"Frank?" Mr Flatley gasps at the sight of Frank, ignoring McNab and walking over to the ersatz caretaker instead, "I don't believe it! You've got a job here too! What were the chances?"

"Mr F, good to see you. And like you say, what were the chances?" Frank says, putting on his caretaker accent.

Maddie stifles a laugh at the sound of the ridiculous accent, causing everyone to look at her, some in confusion, some scrutinisingly. Frank glares over at her, making her shrink back slightly and mouth an apology in his direction. McNab says a few things to Flatley before heading back inside, leading Flatley and the students inside with him.

"Well, that went well."

* * *

Later that day, Maddie is just walking out of the girls toilet when her communicator begins to beep from within her pocket, signalling that she is needed in HQ. It's likely just a drill, but she's excited all the same. She's training to be a spy! Who wouldn't be excited by that? Well, maybe McNab, but that's besides the point. She makes sure that her communicator is secure in her pocket before running down the hall, making her way for the entrance to HQ. When she gets there she finds the others already waiting there for her, looks of excitement on their faces too. Dan slides open the switch panel and presses his thumb against the ID panel, granting them access to the closet. The four of them step inside and Maddie pulls on the broom, activating the lift and sending them deep underground into HQ.

The four of them step out of the lift, now dressed in their spy gear, and make their way to the centre conference table. Dan is the first one to voice his excitement, and Maddie can tel that he is trying hard to keep his cool.

"Look, if this is just a drill, that's totally cool. We're totally professional."

"Actually, it's your first mission."

"Woo! First mission!" Maddie hi-fives Aneisha, Frank shooting a stern look in her direction, "Sorry, Frank. Continue. I am totally professional."

"But it's not all good news." Frank continues, turning back to address the team as a whole, "An hour ago, a SKUL agent was arrested not far from here. You won't believe what he told MI9."

Frank flicks his hand towards one of the monitors, making video feed of an interrogation room pop up on it's transparent screen. The guy who is being interrogated sounds desperate as he speaks, something that makes Maddie flinch as she listens to it. Yes, it's cool to be training to be a spy, but some parts of it definitely can make a person uncomfortable.

"Look, I swear...For the last 10 years, SKUL have been working on the ultimate weapon. Something called the V95. Look, whatever it is, they're moving it across town today. But please don't send me to jail. Me mum'll kill me!

The video feed disappears from the screen and Frank turns back to the kids, "We don't know what the weapon is, or what SKUL are planning. But MI9 have put the city on maximum alert."

The five of them walk over to the computer station, Tom sitting down at the desk with a broad smile on his face, "Birds in the air, people, birds in the air!"

"We had this all summer." Aneisha says to Frank.

"Helicopters are looking for the weapon from above. On the ground, MI9 are blocking all routes out of town. Dan, Aneisha, your job is to set up a roadblock near here." Frank orders, turning over to Maddie, "You stay here with Tom and let us know if anything changes."

"But why? I've been training to be a field agent all summer. Tom is our geek. We don't need another." She looks over at Tom apologetically, "No offence."

"None taken."

"Maddie, you're staying here, and that's an order!" Frank turns to Dan and Aneisha, "Dan. Aneisha. Let's go."

Frank and Aneisha both head for the lift immediately whilst Dan turns back to look at his sister, seemingly conflicted on what to do. He looks at her sympathetically, looking even more conflicted when Frank calls his name.

"Dan, come on."

Dan sighs, "I'll be back soon, alright? Stay with Tom."

Dan turns and runs into the lift, Maddie shouting his name until the lift door closes in front of him. She listens as the lift shoots up from down in HQ before slumping down into a chair by the monitors, grabbing a rubber ball from Frank's desk and tossing it around in her hands. Tom and Maddie sit in silence for a few minutes before Maddie suddenly yells, tossing the ball across the room so it bounces against the closed lift doors.

"I train for weeks to be a field agent and on the first real mission we get, I get stuck in the nerd lair!" She looks at Tom apologetically once again, "Again, no offence."

"None taken, again. But if you keep making nerd insults, I will start to take offence."

"Sorry. I'm just angry. But you have to agree with me on this that this is so unfair!"

"Maybe I do, but that won't change the outcome of the situation. An order is an order." Tom replies, glancing over at her from the computers, "You can help me out by monitoring the surveillance footage if you want to do something."

"Is there anything else I can do?"

"Uh, I think Frank got some new equipment in. The box is over by the armoury. You can unpack that if you don't want to help with the mission."

"I want to help with th...oh, forget it!" She crosses the room and walks into the small armoury of the base, grumbling as she goes, "Anything's got to be better than just sitting around whilst the others do all the cool stuff."

She finds a considerably large cardboard box in the corner of the room and moves over to grab it, opening it up to find an array of gadgets inside. She smirks, "Cool." She begins to sift through the stuff inside of the box, quickly moving past the boring stuff. Yes, spy gadgets _can_ be boring. She pauses when something noteworthy catches her eyes.

"Magnet pucks and gloves? Oh, I am so keeping these!" She pulls the gloves and pucks from their wrapping and begins to recite the instructions, " _Gloves and pucks (to be attached to shoes) with magnetic traction. To active magnetic traction clap hands or stomp feet twice when stationary, respectively._ "

"Maddie, get in here!"

Maddie quickly slips the gloves onto her hands and connects the pucks to the bottom of her shoes, ensuring that both won't be noticeable upon first glance, before packing up the rest of the box and running out of the armoury.

"What's going on, Tom?"

"They found the V95, and it's no firearm or girl." He points to the computer screen, "Look."

Maddie directs her attention towards the computer screen, shocked and confused at what the V95 is. There's an image of a girl who looks around Dan's age with tied up red hair and blank clothes on, similar to the blank clothing that a prisoner might wear.

"This is the V95? Why would SKUL's secret weapon be some teenage girl? She sure doesn't look dangerous."

"Neither do you and you're a spy." Tom notes, Maddie giving him a pointed look which he ignores, "The others are bringing the girl to a secure location. Frank already sent me the coordinates. We're going to go and meet them there."

Tom stands up from his desk and runs over to the lift, stood ready to head up. Maddie follows after him, grumbling once again as she goes, "As if they need us."

* * *

"Ah, team." Frank turns to address the team as they enter the secure location, where he is stood beside Stella, "You remember Stella? Stella Knight. Chief Agent Knight."

Frank stands there awkwardly for a few moments before turning around and walking away, making the whole situation all the more awkward. Maddie looks over at Stella in confusion, "What was that all about?"

"Look after him, will you? Somebody has to." Stella says before following after Frank.

"Whoa! Tension alert!"

The four kids walk over to the main table where the other spies are stood, Tom taking his position at the lie detector. Maddie looks at the girl on the other side of the desk and instantly recognises her through her red hair. It's the V95.

"Now, why don't we start by you telling us your name." Stella addresses the V95 in a stern yet calm voice, "You do have a name?"

"V95." The girl pulls back her shirt sleeve and shows Stella her arm, where a code of some sorts in written in bright green, "Full name, V95 ZOE6."

"And your parents? How do we contact them?"

"I never knew my parents. Spent my whole life at SKUL, training to be a SKUL agent." The girl's voices begins to become more panicked, "But I didn't want to be there, I hated it!"

"Really?" Stella begins to address Tom without taking her eyes off of the girl, "What does the lie detector say?"

"Er...Big squiggle, little squiggle... Yeah, she's telling the truth."

"You can cheat lie detectors!" Dan says harshly, leaning over Tom's chair and looking over at the girl harshly.

"Dan!" Maddie grabs her brother's arm and pulls him to the side as the girl and Stella continue to talk, "There's no need to be so harsh."

"Maddie, she's a part of SKUL. She's dangerous!"

"I don't think she is. I know that looks can be deceiving but she really doesn't seem dangerous. She seems afraid. She's sorta stoic but I can still tell that she's scared." Maddie walks away from Dan and back towards the girl, looking over at Frank and Stella as she goes, "Can I try and talk to her?"

"Maddie, I-."

"Trust me, Frank. She's scared and I don't think that being surrounded by Stella and her intimidating entourage is helping matters." She glances over at the blank-faced agents stood behind the girl, "No offence."

Frank looks over at Stella for her consent, something that makes Maddie smile, but Stella seems completely against the idea, "No way. I cannot allow a newly appointed agent to handle something of this kind of importance. What if she tries to escape?"

"The only way out of here is right through that door, where you and the other agents will be waiting if she tries anything. Besides, I don't think that she will."

Stella looks over at Frank who shrugs back, "It won't hurt to try."

Stella sighs, which Maddie takes as a sign of giving in. She turns to the agents behind Stella and points to the door, the agents nodding back and walking out through the door. She turns back to address Maddie as Frank begins to lead Dan, Aneisha and Tom out after the agents, "You have five minutes, Maddie. No more. If you can't get anything out of her by then, we'll have to come back in and continue to interrogate her like before."

Maddie nods, "I understand. Thank you, Stella."

Stella nods back and follows everyone else out of the room, closing the door shut behind her, leaving Maddie alone with the K95. She moves to sit in the room that Tom had occupied and takes a deep breath, facing the girl with a small smile.

"Hi, I'm Maddie."


	2. The Fall of SKUL Part 2

_"You have five minutes, Maddie. No more. If you can't get anything out of her by then, we'll have to come back in and continue to interrogate her like before."_

 _Maddie nods, "I understand. Thank you, Stella."_

 _Stella nods back and follows everyone else out of the room, closing the door shut behind her, leaving Maddie alone with the K95. She moves to sit in the room that Tom had occupied and takes a deep breath, facing the girl with a small smile._

 _"Hi, I'm Maddie."_

* * *

"Hi, I'm Maddie."

The girl looks over and stares at her blankly, making Maddie feel uneasy where she's sat. She only has five minutes, and because of that she knows that she doesn't have time to sit around and feel awkward. She needs to get this girl to tell her where the SKUL base is. But first, she needs the girl to have even a trace of trust in her.

"I'm sorry about my brother." The girl only looks confused at her statement, so she decides to clear up her confusion, "The blonde boy that yelled. I told him not to be so harsh, but he's just trying to be cautious, you know, because you're affiliated with SKUL and all."

"It's like I said, I hated it there! They treated me like a prisoner!"

"Okay, okay!" Maddie speaks loudly but, unlike everyone else who has spoken to the girl, her voice is not harsh or stern, "Look, we want to help you here. And you never know, once Dan calms down a bit, we can all be friends."

The girls face lights up at Maddie's comment, "Friends? I never had any friends at SKUL!"

Maddie smiles awkwardly. That's not one of the things that most people would admit, "Well, we can change all of that, but in order to do that we need to know where SKUL's secret base is."

"I don't know where it is! I was never allowed outside on my own and whenever I was transported somewhere I was blindfolded. The something happened this morning when they tried to move me to the rendezvous point."

Maddie quickly glances over at the lie detector to check that she's not lying about all of this. She isn't, "What about the rendezvous point? Do you know where that is?"

The girl shakes her head, "No. I never got told anything. Everything was always classified."

Maddie glances back at the lie detector again. Still telling the truth. Maddie sighs, knowing that she won't get any information out of this girl about the location of the base. She figures that she may as well go with her curiosity and ask the girl more questions about what happened at SKUL.

"You said that SKUL were training you to become an agent. What exactly did they train you in?"

"Fighting techniques. Problem solving. All of the skills that good agents have. But I hated it there! I didn't want to be there!"

"But how did you get there?" Maddie asks, "Who brought you to SKUL to be trained?"

Maddie jumps up when the door to the room opens, Stella, her agents and the others storming back into the room, "Hey! That wasn't five minutes!"

"It was long enough." Stella responds sharply as the agents return to their former positions behind the girl, "Did you get the information?"

"No. She doesn't know. Even without the lie detector I can tell that she's telling the truth. She doesn't know a thing."

"Really?" Dan scoffs, "You buy that she was blindfolded every time she left the building?"

"It's possible. The Grandmaster doesn't trust anyone."

"But just think, what if she was kept a prisoner her whole life?"

"That's exactly my point, Neish." Maddie says, "Look, we joined MI9 to help people, right? And that girl may be a bit clueless and odd, but she needs our help right now. Perhaps more than anyone."

Dan seems to be about to respond to his sister when the girls watch begins to beep, panic growing on her face the longer it does, "It's him! It's the Grandmaster!"

"Wait!" Frank quickly runs to her side, "If you're serious about leaving SKUL, maybe you can help us trace the call. Tom?"

"Already working my magic." Tom says, moving to sit down by the computers and the lie detector equipment.

"Put the watch in here. It'll pick the signal up."

Frank picks up the watch on Stella's command and places it into the device she is pointing at, turning to address the girl once he has, "Stay very calm. And don't say any more than hello."

The girl reaches forward and answers the call, trying to speak with a steady voice as she addresses the Grandmaster, "Hello?"

"So, you're alive. You took so long answering, I feared the worst." The Grandmaster responds in his nasally voice, "What is your status, V95?"

"Status...Still in the van en route to the rendezvous."

"Ask him where he is." Stella whispers sternly.

"What's your location?"

"The General and I are still at...Careful, that's a priceless family heirloom!" The Grandmaster yells as the sound of something smashing just about sounds through the communicator, "I must go before these cretins destroy everything."

The Grandmaster hangs up the call, which sends Stella into an angry frenzy, "No! We can't lose him! Call him back, quick!"

"I can't. The watch only works one way." The girl responds in an afraid voice, "It's to stop me making contact with the outside world."

"It doesn't matter. Look."

Everyone directs their attention to the computer monitor, Tom filling in the blanks and explaining what's happening on the screen, "This is us. The signal went up to the SKUL satellite, back down to here, where the call came from."

"The Grandmaster's secret base!"

Stella quickly slams her hand down on a communicator on the desk, "This is Chief Agent Knight! I want all agents to report immediately! This is a code 19! I repeat, a code 19!"

"What are we waiting for?!" Dan shouts, "Let's go get him!"

"No. You four have a new mission. Stay here. Watch the girl."

"What? No way!" Maddie shouts, "I've already missed out on one mission today! I don't want to miss out on another!"

"Agent Morgan...Until I find out who she is, watch that girl." Stella says before walking out, bringing her mysterious agents with her.

Maddie groans, "Why do I always miss out on all of the cool stuff?!"

* * *

Maddie sits beside the girl on a bench outside of the school as the others talk amongst themselves to the side. Maddie would stand with them and engage in the conversation, but it mostly consists of her brother complaining about everything that's going on. She gets enough of that at home as it is.

"Here." Aneisha walks over and sits on the other side of the girl, handing her a book with a blue cover and smiling at her warmly, "I took this from MI9. I hate not finishing a book."

"Really?" The girl smiles over at Aneisha, "You did that for me?"

"She's gonna need a name." Dan says walking over to the girls, Tom trailing after him, "You can't really call her V95."

"I know! How about Lightning? Or Firestorm! Actually, I know a Firestorm online. Three, actually. It could get confusing."

"Or, how about Zoe?" Aneisha suggests, looking at the code written on the girls arm.

"Not bad, Neish." Maddie glances over at the girl, "What do you reckon?"

"Zoe? Zoe!" The girl rises up from the bench with a wide smile, "I love Zoe!"

Frank walks over to group and shoots a stern look over at Zoe, clearly displeased that she is out in the open the way she is, "Excuse me, I thought I told you to stay in HQ!"

"You, girl!"

Maddie groans at the sight of who's approaching. McNab, "Oh, great. This is gonna go well."

"I haven't seen you here before." Mcnab pauses and turns to address Zoe sternly, "What's your name?"

"Er, sorry Mr McNab. I... should have said, um...This is...my niece."

Tom quickly fills in the blanks and provides Frank with his 'nieces' name, "Zoe."

"Zoe."

"I'm Zoe!" Zoe smiles warmly over at McNab, which only seems to confuse the strict Deputy Headmaster even more.

"Zoe's school shut. Burnt down, tragically." Frank lies rather convincingly, something that Maddie can't deny she finds impressive, "I thought she could come here instead."

"Oh, you did, did you?"

"Of course. Zoe's more than welcome here." Mr Flatley smiles warmly over at Zoe and puts his arm around her shoulders, beginning to lead her off to no doubt show her around the school, "I just hope that lunch here is a little nicer than the teachers..."

McNab looks a bit disorientated at the shift in control of the situation, and the look on his face is so priceless that Maddie can't help but let out a small laugh. McNab whips his head around and stares at her intensely before she can even finish her laugh, "What are you laughing at, girl?"

Maddie quickly stops laughing and shakes her head, "Nothing, sir."

McNab eyes her suspiciously for a few moments before marching off in his usual soldier fashion, everyone sighing in relief once he's out of sight. Frank instantly turns to the four agents and begins interrogating them, "Why did you let her out of HQ? It's dangerous for her to be out here, both for MI9 and Zoe herself!"

"Don't worry, Frank. We'll look after her." Aneisha looks over at the others, "Right guys?"

Tom and Maddie both nod back whilst Dan just stands there with a stoic expression on his face, something which doesn't go unnoticed by Maddie. She shoots a pointed look over in his direction, causing him to sigh and relent, "Yeah, sure, fine. But I still don't trust her."

"But I do." Aneisha replies, "Like I said, I've got a good feeling about her."

* * *

Maddie sets her tray down at the lunch table where the others are sat, stifling a laugh at Zoe scoffing down jelly like there's no tomorrow. She sits down between Zoe and Aneisha, the latter of the two holding her spy pod in her hands.

"Great!" Aneisha shows Dan her spy pod, "MI9 are nearly at the Grandmaster's base."

"Careful!" Dan's eyes quickly shift to Zoe before looking back at Aneisha, "She could be watching."

"Yeah, that's not likely. I don't think that she cares about anything else other than that bowl of jelly." Maddie laughs and looks over at Zoe, "I take it you weren't allowed jelly at SKUL either?"

Zoe looks up briefly and shakes her head, her eyes catching onto Dan's untouched bowl of jelly. After a few moments Dan relents and passes his bowl over to Zoe, which she begins to eat almost instantly.

"Still, we should be there. Not stuck here doing whatever it is."

"I'm trying to figure out how to hack into that SKUL satellite." Tom says, keeping his eyes locked on Zoe's communicator as he talks, "I mean, who knows what we could find."

"Doesn't it suck to have to sit out on a mission?" Maddie rolls her eyes over at Aneisha and Dan, "Welcome to my world."

"Oh, come on, Mads." Dan sighs, "You only missed one mission, and it wasn't exactly an exciting one."

"You found SKUL's secret weapon in the back of van! How can you say that's not exciting?"

Dan shrugs and reaches out for Aneisha's plate, picking up one of her chips and putting it into his mouth. Aneisha glares over at him as he eats the chip, "Oi! What you doing?"

Dan shrugs again, "It's only a chip."

"Yeah but it's MY chip!" Aneisha responds sharply, "'Hello, I'm Aneisha's. Get your filthy hands off!'"

"That's it!"

"Woah!" Maddie shouts as Tom lowers himself back down into his plastic seat, "What's got you all excited?"

"That's how I hack into the SKUL satellite."

Dan's voice is full of confusion, "By pretending to be a chip?"

Tom stands up and dashes out of the canteen, bringing Zoe's communicator with him. Aneisha follows swiftly afterwards, Dan and Maddie getting up after her. As they walk through the halls, Zoe just behind them, Dan turns to look at Maddie and notices the gloves on her hands, "Why are you wearing gloves indoors?"

Maddie looks over at Dan as they reach the storage room, trying her best to give him a convincing response. She doesn't think that he'll be too pleased if he finds out she took some of the gadgets that Frank ordered in. She doesn't even want to think about how Frank will react, "Oh, I'm just a bit chilly. September weather and all."

Maddie's relieved when her brother doesn't push the matter any further, and the five of them cram into the small closet shaped room and head straight down to HQ. Tom wastes no time when the lift doors slide open, instantly crossing the room to the centre table, "Frank? Frank, I know how to hack into that SKUL satellite. Using this."

Tom places Zoe's communicator down on the table, Frank looking back at Tom with confusion written all over his face, "What? How? Zoe's communicator only works one way."

"The communicator does,but the transmitter chip will work in anything. All we have to do is steal the chip."

"Does anybody else know what he's doing?"

"I think that I have an idea." Maddie mumbles, keeping her eyes trained on Tom as he dismantles the communicator. She doesn't even really notice when Zoe reaches into her pocket and pulls out her pencil communicator, holding it up in her own hands.

"The signal from these goes through an MI9 satellite. By using my chip, it will go through the SKUL satellite instead."

"Exactly!" Maddie gasps as Zoe hands her the communicator back, "Tom, you're a genius if you can pull this off."

"There." Tom hands the reconstructed communicator over to Dan, "Dan, call Neisha."

"Hi, Dan. How's the attitude?"

"Check it out." Tom rushes over to the computers and takes his position at the desk, the others swarming around him as he works, "The signal from Dan's pencil goes up the SKUL satellite and back down to Neish. All I need to do is piggyback the signal, and...Bingo!"

"You've hacked into the satellite?"

"It's everything being said over the SKUL communicators right now."

Maddie smirks, "Tom, you're a genius."

Tom doesn't respond and instead presses a few buttons on the keyboard, tapping into a conversation that is happening over the SKUL communicators in that moment.

 _'Tell me about it, this evacuation's doing my head in!'_

 _'But you managed to get out?'_

 _'We're driving to that office block on Stanley Road. 'Grandmaster's going to escape from the roof._

 _'How's he going to do that?'_

 _'I don't know! Got to go. Laters!'_

"Hold on." Aneisha says as the conversation over the communicators cuts out, "So the Grandmaster's on his way to some office block?

"It means he's not at his secret base."

"Oh, that's gonna cause a bit of a lovers quarrel between you and Stella." Maddie's laughter dies out when everyone looks at her sternly. Even Zoe looks annoyed at her attempt of a joke, "Sorry, now's not the time."

"I'll call Stella, tell her to get to that office block, quick."

"It's in Stanley Road, that's miles from where Stella is now."

"It's not far from us." Aneisha says, "We could be there in minutes."

"Zoe, stay put." Frank orders, him and the agents beginning to make their way for the lift, "Don't move till we get back.

"Frank...We're just going to leave Zoe here alone?" Dan asks incredulously, "She could hack the mainframe."

Frank holds up some kind of remote in his hands and presses a button, causing all of the lights in the room to shut off, "There. It's safe."

Frank turns and joins the others in the lift, but Dan still seems reluctant to leave; Frank calls his name after he doesn't follow for a few seconds, "Dan, come on."

Dan reluctantly turns away from Zoe and joins the others in the lift, Frank giving one more command as the lift doors close in front of the agents,

"Doors lock."

* * *

The five agents sneak up onto the roof of the office block, two escaping SKUL guards and the Grandmaster visible not far from where they hiding.

"We go in fast and quiet - take them by surprise. Agreed?"

"Wait!" The five agents sharply turn around, surprised to find Zoe stood behind them, "I'm coming with you."

"Zoe! I thought I locked..." Frank hesitates momentarily and quickly changes his words, "Asked you to stay in HQ?"

"I can pick security locks. And I wanted to help." Zoe explains, "That book I've got - the only one I was allowed at SKUL. It's about five friends who solve mysteries. I've never had any friends to help."

As Zoe talks with the group Maddie turns back towards where the SKUL guards are, panicking slightly when they notice where they are hiding, "Uh, guys. This is not good."

The others turn to where she is looking, Frank promptly moving Zoe behind him, "All right. But stay behind me."

The five agents and Zoe run towards the Grandmaster and his guards, pausing at a reasonably safe difference from their enemies. Maddie takes a moment to observe the Grandmaster, and she has to admit that she thought he'd look a bit more intimidating in person. Maybe it's the bunny that takes that away.

"MI9. Like I didn't have enough problems. Gentlemen, do your wor...What?" The Grandmaster stops his rambling at the sight of Zoe stood behind Frank, "V95? I thought you were at the emergency rendezvous."

"Yeah, well...we got to her first. Guess what? She thinks you suck!" Aneisha says confidently, "Tell him, Zoe."

Zoe stands there completely still for a few moments, seemingly conflicted on what to do. "Come, V95, our situation has just got far more serious." She begins to walk forward at the Grandmaster's order, but soon stops moving once again, "That's an order, V95!

"No!" Zoe shouts defiantly, "No, I'm never going back to SKUL! Never!"

The Grandmaster grumbles something unintelligible before turning to his guards, barking out an order sternly, "Go, get her!"

The two guards begin to advance towards Zoe, their electrical gloves pointing towards her threateningly. Zoe backs up, clearly afraid, and Dan quickly jumps in to fight them off. As he knocks them both to the ground, Maddie notices that the Grandmaster is beginning to make his escape. She's not entirely sure how, but she soon finds herself climbing up the side of the Helipad where his escape ship is located in an attempt to follow after him. She reaches the Helipad as the door to the ship is beginning to close and, acting completely out of her first impulse, she claps her hands together and holds them up towards the ascending ship. The magnetic traction from the gloves pulls her up and into the ship as the door closes behind her, rendering her alone on the ship with one of the most wanted criminals in the world.

She walks through the small entrance bay of the ship and into the cockpit, where the Grandmaster is sat piloting the ship. She wastes no time in doing her job, moving into a defensive stance and speaking with a confident voice, "Grandmaster, you are under arrest. Land this ship immediately."

The Grandmaster flips a switch, which Maddie presumes is the autopilot switch, and rises up from his seat, holding his bunny firmly in his hands, "I will not take orders from a child. Especially not one who is an MI9 spy!"

Maddie sighs. She knows that she's crazy for trying to reason with the Grandmaster, but she tried it anyway. She really should've thought this through. What is she supposed to do now? It's not like she can call for backup. She doesn't have any mission experience. She's basically hopeless. All she has is these stupid magnet gloves and pucks, and it's not like she can do anything with those...

 _"That's it! The pucks!"_

She reaches down and pulls one of the pucks off of her shoes, holding it firmly in her right hand and pulling her arm back. Without a second thought she tosses the puck right at the middle of the control panel, and moments later the control panel in question short circuits and begins to spark. The Grandmaster quickly moves back into his seat and tries to control the ship, but of course the controls have no effect on the movement of the ship.

"What have you done, you stupid girl?!"

Maddie doesn't hang around in the cockpit long enough to answer his question. She runs back into the entrance bay, frantically scanning the small space for what she needs; she sighs in relief when she finds it. A parachute. She quickly pulls it off of its rack and puts it on, securing the straps around her waist and back. She sure is thankful that part of the MI9 training that she and the others received over the summer was all about using parachutes. She just about secures it in time when she feels a heavy blast of wind coming from the cockpit. She glances back, finding that both the Grandmaster and his bunny are now gone.

 _The pilot seat must've had a parachute installed._

"It's now or never."

Maddie hits the button on the side of the entrance bay, the entrance to the ship opening up and bringing in heavy gusts of wind with it. She can see that she's not too far off from the ground, and that means that she hasn't got that long left to jump. She has to go now.

"Come on!"

She leaps out of the ship as her heart pounds out of her chest, her head full of both fear and excitement. When she's a reasonable distance from the ship and grass begins to come into sight she reaches behind her and deploys the parachute, which rapidly slows down her descent to safety. She touches down on the ground as a group of masked men run off, the rest the team and Zoe already waiting there a few yards away from the Grandmaster. She reaches behind and pulls off her parachute, discarding it on the grass, and walks towards the others at a comfortable pace. Dan runs forwards and meets her halfway, wrapping her into a strong hug as Stella and her agents approach the Grandmaster.

"I'm so glad you're okay."

Maddie pulls away from the hug and smirks up at her brother, "Did you ever doubt me?"

"Yes." Dan says bluntly, "You jumped into the Grandmasters ship without a second thought! How could I not doubt you?"

"But I jumped back out so..." Maddie mumbles, Dan clearly annoyed at her response, "Right, that's not helping."

"I'm just glad that you're okay."

Maddie smiles back at her brother before turning back towards everyone else, running over in time to hear Aneisha yelling at Stella, "It wasn't Zoe! Someone else is after the Grandmaster, and they're getting away!"

"This girl is a SKUL agent, and she is not to be trusted!"

"Woah, Stella! Stop!" Maddie shouts as she and Dan come to a stop beside Zoe, "This isn't her fault! She was trying to help us, not help SKUL!"

"Look out!"

The next few moments pass by so fast that Maddie struggles to keep track of it all. The laser fires out of the Grandmasters cane at lightning speed towards Frank, but it never hits him. Zoe dives in front of him and takes the shot herself, which sends her down to the ground on impact. Everyone quickly swarms around the wounded girl as Dan checks for a pulse, and nobody has to ask when they see the grave look on his face.

"Wait...She's alive!"

Everyone perks up at Dan's sudden outburst, which is supported when Zoe begins to cough and push herself up off of the ground.

"How?" Stella asks, looking nothing short of flabbergasted, "She took the full force of the laser."

Zoe, now in a sitting position, reaches into the pocket on the seared side of her blazer and pulls out a book, which appears to be what took most of the impact of the blast. Despite that, Zoe still seems sad at the sight of her ruined book, and Marie can't help but feel sorry for her, "Don't worry, we'll get you a new copy. No burns and all."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Maddie stands up and moves to stand beside Frank, who is staring at the Grandmaster intensely from where he's stood, "Frank, would you like to do the honours?"

Frank nods back and advances towards the Grandmaster, standing tall and proud as he addresses him, "Grandmaster...on behalf of all my M.I. High teams...You're under arrest."

* * *

"Look, whatever MI9 has planned for Zoe, I'm sure they'll look after her." Dan says as he and the others agents walk through the school corridor, making their way down to HQ.

"I hope so." Aneisha sighs, "I'm going to miss her, that's all."

"Me too. She seemed really cool." Maddie adds, "A bit strange, but cool nonetheless."

The others laugh at her comment, but Maddie chooses not to pick up on it as they reach their destination. Dan slides back the panel and scans his fingerprint into the system. The door opens up and the four agents are shocked (to say the least) by who they find waiting behind the door for them.

"Zoe!"

Zoe strike and glances down at her watch before looking back up at the others, "One minute, 38 seconds. Not bad for MI9."

"We thought we'd never see you again!"

Maddie and Aneisha both rush forwards and hug Zoe whilst the boys close the door, Tom groaning jokingly as he takes his place beside Maddie, "OK, enough of the mushy stuff! Now, who votes Zoe pulls the broom?"

The others nod in agreement to Toms suggestion. Zoe smiles back at them and reaches forward to pull the broom, sending the team deep underground and into HQ. The five of them step out of the lift, now changed into their appropriate clothing, and walk up to the centre table, where Frank is already waiting for them.

"Well, what do you think of my little surprise?"

"Finally I've got someone to talk spy clothes with."

Maddie looks over at Aneisha in mock-offence, "Hey! What about me?"

"Yeah, you get back to me when you're not spending your time jumping out of escape aircrafts." Aneisha chuckles lightheartedly.

"Yes, I'm sorry about that, Maddie." Frank interjects apologetically, "I'm afraid that you didn't quite get the credit you deserved for what you did due to everything that was going on."

Maddie waves him off, "Ah, it's alright! In fact, I got something much better than any kind of medal or reward."

"What's that?"

"Well, my dear brother." Madrid turns to Dan with a smirk plastered on her face, "Yours and Aneishas first mission involved stopping a van whilst _my_ first mission involves jumping out of an aircraft."

"So...what's your point?"

"My point is, Dan, I had the cooler first mission out of the two of us, so no matter what happens, I'll always have that over you." Maddie cheers and holds her hand up for him to hi-five, "I win!"

Dan laughs and rolls his eyes, ruffling the top of her before turning to Frank and switching to a more serious tone, "So what about those men that attacked us? If they didn't work for SKUL, who were they?"

"Here." Tom pulls out a reasonably sized laptop and places it on the centre table, "Grandmaster's laptop. I found a message he got earlier. It's well freaky."

Tom hits play on the laptop, which starts off a sinister message spoken by someone with a sinister tone:

 _'Greetings, Grandmaster. Remember your old friend? I'm now truly the mastermind. You have something that belongs to me. But fear not - the days of SKUL are over, for now, KORPS is rising'."_

The six agents all look around at each other, grave looks on their faces, as the final sentence of the message continues to echo through their ears:

"KORPS is rising. KORPS...is rising."


	3. Trojan KORPS Part 1

_'Greetings, Grandmaster. Remember your old friend? I'm now truly the mastermind. You have something that belongs to me. But fear not - the days of SKUL are over, for now, KORPS is rising'."_

 _The six agents all look around at each other, grave looks on their faces, as the final sentence of the message continues to echo through their ears:_

 _"KORPS is rising. KORPS...is rising."_

* * *

"The last time I saw one of these KORPS insignias, I was working down here, in our old MI9 war room. We used to call this place the Bunker. At the height of the secret world war with KORPS, we had 150 agents working here, with over 200 similar bases in other countries. Even then it was a close-run thing."

The five spies look around the bunker, Maddie's curiosity being fully fuelled by all of the history contained inside of the hidden underground base. Frank decided to bring the team down here as soon as possible after hearing the strange message on the Grandmasters laptop. It's not like Maddie's complaining. She finds all of this MI9 history pretty cool. Who wouldn't?

Dan taps his knuckles on the side of the bunker, a loud metallic noise sounding in response, "Titanium?"

"Correct." Frank nods, "This place is a fortress, right underneath MI9 HQ."

"Whoa... Dinosaur alert!" Tom smirks over at a very old computer; Maddie finds the sight of it amusing herself. It's lightyears behind the kind of technology that MI9 have at their disposal nowadays, "How old is this stuff? Did a caveman sit here?"

"That was my desk!" Frank chimes in defensively, walking over to his old desk and looking at some of the files still sat there, "Ah, the circle mystery! A ton of old KORPS junk I collected, all marked the same way. Never did find out why. Probably just how they marked their trash."

Zoe reaches forward and pulls a photo of Frank and a girl from the side of his old computer, "This girl you're with looks a lot like Stella."

"Frank, was Stella your girlfriend?"

"Focus, please!"

"What? Like how you were spending all your time down here focusing on Stella?" Maddie smirks, Frank shooting a stern look in her direction, "Hey, you can't get annoyed at me for telling the truth!"

"Forget all of that. We need to focus on KORPS!"

"We get it." Dan sighs, clearly bored by the whole situation, "KORPS was a big deal. But come on, they're really just the old version of SKUL."

"And look what we did to SKUL. Bosh!"

"You're not getting it at all. Look..." Frank walks over to one of the walls and flips a switch, revealing a small crime board centred around SKUL, "This is SKUL. And this..." He flips another switch, revealing another crime board quadruple in size dedicated to KORPS, "This is KORPS."

"Whoa!"

"Whoa doesn't even begin to describe it. This operation makes the Grandmaster look as intimidating as that bunny of his." Maddie looks over at Frank, "If KORPS are really back, like the message on the laptop said, we are in _big_ trouble."

"And I'm telling you it's not possible!" Frank replies sharply, "I saw them destroyed. They're never coming back."

"But Frank, surely we need to consider all of the possibilities. I hate to say it, but surely there's a chance that somebody could have revived KORPS." Maddie responds in a steady voice, "Perhaps an enemy leader."

Frank shakes his head, "That's not possible. The Grand Master was the only enemy leader to escape in the final days of the war with KORPS."

"How do these two fit in?"

The others direct their attention towards Dan, who is pointing at two names on the KORPS crime board, "The bosses. That's the Master Mind and his deputy, the Crime Minister."

"The Master Mind? Like the voice we heard on the recording?"

"It did sound like him, but no." Frank says dismissively, "It can't have been. These two are both dead."

"Why are you so sure they're dead?"

"Just trust me. I was there. Whoever this new lot are, they _cannot_ be KORPS."

"Then who?" Aneisha asks.

"Some copycat group." Frank replies quickly, "The question is, who would have enough knowledge and resources to create a convincing fake of a global organisation like KORPS?"

Maddie can't help but dwell on those thoughts herself. Could it be a copycat group just pretending to be KORPS? That would be the ideal answer. Yes, it may still be hard to take this supposed 'copycat KORPS' down, but surely it would be much better than taking down KORPS itself. SKUL dwarfs KORPS in comparison to it's size and magnitude of operations, and it took MI9 years to take down SKUL. Whilst she'd love to believe that Frank is right and that KORPS have been completely wiped out, it sounds far too good to be true.

"This area is off-limits!"

Maddie jumps up at the loud shout, relaxing only just when she sees that it's Stella. Maybe a bad guy would've been less terrifying. An angry Stella is _not_ somebody that anyone wants to deal with.

"Trying to hide the evidence?" Tom smirks, holding up the picture of Stella and Frank in his hand.

Frank quickly snatches the picture from him and turns to Stella, "Stella, I haven't said a word."

"I don't care about ancient history!" Stella snipes back, "I've got a massive PR disaster on my hands right now. The last thing I need is you poking your nose into restricted areas!"

"What happened?"

Stella puts the laptop that's in her hands down and opens it up, revealing video feed from a local news channel,

 _"It was a tip-off that led MI9 agents to this house, where they arrested 126-year-old grandmother Phyllis Humm for running an illegal international prize-fighting club. Mrs Humm was also accused of being the current heavyweight champion. Following a gruelling investigation, Britain's oldest woman was released with an apology. An embarrassing day for MI9. This is Jenny Lane reporting."_

"No wonder she's in a bad mood."

Aneisha smirks, "Yeah, and I thought it was cos Frank dumped her."

"I want all of you out of here at once!" Stella says harshly, turning back to them briefly as she begins to head back out of the bunker, "And he didn't dump me. I dumped him!"

"So she was Frank's girlfriend."

"Frank. I have just one question about all of this." Maddie turns to look over at Frank, who looks back at her in waiting for her question, "How long were the two of you dating?"

Stella comes back into the bunker, looking at the agents sternly, "Everybody out, now!"

"Somebody's bitter about the breakup."

* * *

Maddie walks down the school corridor with Dan, Aneisha and Tom, only half listening to what Aneisha is saying about what Frank had told them. She knows that she should listen to what her team has to say, but she's too busy thinking about it all for herself. She really wants to think that it's just a copycat group, but that seems far too easy. She may not have been an agent for that long, but she does know that something as big as a large scale evil corporation can't be as simple as this. It just can't.

"Uh-oh..."

Maddie snaps out of her thoughts as Aneisha pulls a clipboard away from Melissa Allbright, the student council president, who is seemingly trying to get Zoe to sign up to some extracurricular clubs, "She's not interested."

"I am!" Zoe responds enthusiastically, "It's great, I've never done any of this stuff before."

"You don't know how lucky you are!" Aneisha scoffs, looking down at the clipboard and reading through some of the clubs that Zoe is signing up to, "Gardening Club, Chess Club, Ping Pong Team, Potato Awareness Group, Advanced Abseiling, Brass Band, Jazz Band, Choir - that ought to be banned. You're about to sign up to 23 clubs!"

"Zoe, that's insane!" Maddie gasps, shocked that the girl is so enthusiastic about so many things, "You'd literally have to be a complete and utter maniac to join all of these clubs!"

"I'm in all those clubs!"

Maddie gestures to Melissa, "That proves my point." She looks over at Dan, "What time is it?"

Dan glances down at his watch, "11:28. Why?"

Maddie's eyes go wide in panic. She supposed to be in Biology in 2 minutes, and that's on the other side of the school! She says a quick goodbye to the others before sprinting down the corridor and towards the science block, weaving in and out the growing crowds of students. She runs outside and around to the science block, pulling the door open as the clock ticks to 11:29. She rushes upstairs to where her classroom is located, stumbling through the door as the bell rings through the corridor. She lets out a sigh of relief when she gets to stop running. Yes, her attendance isn't the greatest for obvious reasons, but it doesn't mean that she likes to be late for the lessons that she actually has the opportunity to attend.

"Miss Morgan." Maddie gulps and turns towards the person saying her name, her stern science teacher Mr Phillips, "If you'd do us all a favour and take a seat, perhaps we can start the lesson."

Maddie nods back and crosses the room over to her seat, sitting down at her desk as Mr Phillips turns to the whiteboard and begins to write down the date and title. As Maddie begins to recline back into her chair and get comfortable, she feels a familiar buzzing in her blazer pocket and inwardly groans. She's got to run again?! Sighing, she tentatively raises her hand to ask to be excused, quickly racking her brain for an excuse. She can't use the toilet excuse again. She's used that far too many times already.

"What is it, Miss Morgan?"

Maddie looks over at the teacher, stumbling over her words as she uses the first excuse that comes to her head, "I-I have a dentist's appointment, sir."

"Have you got a note?"

"No, sir."

"Then I guess that the dentist will have to wait." He turns back to the board and continues to write, "Copy the phrases on the board about photosynthesis quickly. Then turn to pages 171 and 172 of the textbook and answer questions 1-9."

Maddie groans and leans back in her seat once again. She has to get out of this class! If not for the fact that she has to get down to HQ, but for the fact that it's _so_ boring. She already understands photosynthesis. She understood the entire concept after three lessons in Year 7. But, of course, since it's on the exam syllabus, the school is persistent on re-teaching it over and over again until everybody understands it. Maddie understands that the lessons work like that so that everybody can improve over time, but, oh boy, is it a drag for her!

Twenty minutes or so pass when there's a knock at the classroom door. Maddie instantly looks towards the door, smiling when she sees that it's Frank stood there with a bucket in hand, "Sorry to disturb your lesson, Mr Phillips. I need to borrow Maddie."

"May I ask why, Mr London?"

"It's her turn to be the caretakers helper for the afternoon." Frank lies convincingly, "The scheme was originally planned for Year 10's and 11's only, but Mr Flatley thought that it would be a nice idea to expand the program."

Mr Phillips seems unconvinced, which doesn't go unnoticed by Frank, "Oh, and of course, Mr McNab came to the same conclusion when he heard about the scheme."

Maddie smirks. If there's one person that intimidates even Mr Phillips, it's Mr McNab. Mr McNab intimidates everyone. Mr Phillips quickly turns towards Maddie, "You may go with Mr London."

Maddie nods and quickly rises from her seat, grabbing her bag and rushing towards the door. The second the classroom door closes, Frank begins asking Maddie questions, "Where have you been?"

"I'm sorry! Mr Phillips wouldn't let me out without a note! That guy is brutal!" Maddie sighs, quickly switching to a more important topic of conversation, "What's going on?"

"I'll tell you everything when we're down in HQ."

Maddie realises that they isn't a point of trying to get anymore answers until they're down in HQ, so she silently follows Frank through the school and down into HQ. Tom is already sat down there at his computer station, a packet of Rich Tea biscuits at his side as per usual, "Where have you been?"

"I got a bit held up." Maddie responds quickly, moving to talk to Frank at the centre table, "So, what's going on?"

"MI9 have identified an anomaly at one of our secret storage facilities - Vault 12."

"Oh, you mean the place that MI9 keep captured super weapons and other things of that manner?"

Frank groans and looks between Tom and Maddie, "How do you both know about this?"

"Well, I'm going to assume that Tom hacked into the security and I know because I do my research." Maddie replies, "I'd be a bad spy if I didn't know about the organisation that I'm working for."

"Well, anyway, due to the emergence of these new KORPS wannabes, MI9 have upgraded the alert level to amber. I've sent the others to check out what's going on. I'm sure it's nothing, though."

"Okay, what do you want me to do?"

"Help Tom monitor the security footage of the facility and check the data that the team send back. They've already started sending data back."

Maddie nods and walks over to the compute station, sitting down beside Tom and attaching a communicator to her right ear, "You guys there?"

"We're here, Maddie." Aneisha replies, "But where have you been?"

"I'll explain later. Just keep scanning for anomalies and sending the data through."

Another reading comes through and Frank is quick to respond to the team, only glancing at the reading before giving his orders, "OK, team. The readings are fine. Head back to base."

"Hold on." Maddie says suddenly, "Send that last one back through again."

A few seconds pass before Dan speaks into the communicator, presumably because he is rescanning the area, "The heat's up 0.2%."

"That's only just outside the margin of error - let's call it a day." Frank says dismissively.

"Frank, it could be something more. Why would the heat signatures of a secure MI9 facility be up?" Maddie looks over at Tom, "Tom, what do you think?"

"The room's 125 cubic metres and kept at a constant temperature of 22 degrees. To raise the temp 0.2%, you'd need a 500-watt, three-bar heater or exactly..."

"Three human bodies." Maddie mumbles, readjusting her communicator and speaking with a hint of urgency, "Guys, three people are in there! I don't know how, but they are." She looks back over at Frank, not wanting to give orders without his consent. It's not her place.

Frank taps on the side of his own communicator, "Team, find out who's in there."

Maddie takes her own communicator off and places it on the desk, crossing over to the centre table and standing across from Frank, "Who do you suppose it is?"

"I don't know."

"I know you don't want to think about it, Frank, but is it possible that it's KOR-?"

"It's not KORPS!" Frank's shout makes Maddie jump back, something that he immediately looks apologetic for, "Look, when the team catch whoever's in there, we'll soon find out who they are and who they work for." Frank moves his hand up to his communicator, "Great work, team. Well done."

"They got 'em?" Maddie asks, Frank nodding back, "That's good. So, no harm done, then. Right?"

"I wouldn't say that exactly." Both Frank and Maddie look over at Tom, who is flipping through the security feed of the facility worriedly, "One of the other rooms got hit too. They took the Global Vaporiser."

* * *

"I was in on the interrogation. The operatives you caught wouldn't talk."

After the others returned, Frank had gone to MI9 HQ where they operatives' interrogation took place. Around about an hour later, he returned, but sadly not with positive news.

"Well, we know who they work for. It has to be KORPS."

"We've been through this!" Frank yells harshly, "I don't know who we're fighting but it is _not_ KORPS."

"Frank...TORSO, SKUL, KORPS - we've seen them, fought them." Dan explains, "We've even captured two of them. We've got their badges, their uniforms and we've heard the Master Mind's voice. Why won't you even consider the possibility this is KORPS?"

"Because I was there!" Frank lowers his voice to a calmer tone to continue his explanation, "I led the MI9 team in the final battle with KORPS. One of the enemy's super weapons blew up. The explosion was so great they had to identify the Master Mind using DNA. They never even found the Crime Minister's body. I was the only person to get out of that building alive."

"But, Frank, isn't it possible that...?"

"Hang on." Zoe interjects, "The only one? What happened to the rest of the MI9 team?"

"I lost a lot of friends that day. If KORPS weren't totally destroyed, then they died for nothing."

"Something just doesn't add up." Maddie looks over at Tom, "Tom, can you pull up a map of the facility on the monitor for me?"

Tom swipes a map of the facility up onto the large monitor at the end of HQ and moves to where Maddie is stood, the two of them analysing the larger map again to see if there's something that they missed. The room is silent for a few moments until Tom suddenly gasps and zooms in on the access panel at the front of the facility, "Right there! The only way to enter that floor hatch in Vault 12 is with internal MI9 access."

"There was evidence that the bad tip-off about Mrs Humm came from inside MI9 too. I thought it was just a mistake."

"Could a traitor inside MI9 be behind all this? Who'd know enough about KORPS to pull it off? Except for Stella and me, of course." Frank says, his last sentence coming out a bit more rushed than the others, "Still, it doesn't make sense."

"Imagine if the press got hold of this traitor thing as well as the Mrs Humm thing."

Maddie nods gravely, "Stella would not be happy about that."

"It already has."

Aneisha opens up a laptop that's on the centre table and goes to a live video feed of the same news reporter that reported the Mrs Humm controversy,

 _"A missing super-weapon and MI9 in crisis. We've just learned that this looks like an inside job. I'm just going to try and get a word with this MI9 official."_

Stella walks out of the MI9 head offices, clearly not in the mood to have an interview with the nosey reporter, when the reporter in question approaches her seeking answers,

 _"E_ _xcuse me? How do you feel about calls for MI9 to be withdrawn from security at tomorrow's World Leaders Conference?"_

" _It's business as usual."_

 _"How can you carry on when you can't even trust your own operatives?"_

 _"No comment."_

 _"This has been Jenny Lane reporting."_

"That reporter really winds me up."

Frank shrugs at Aneisha's comment, "She's just doing her job."

"I don't like it." Dan says dismissively, "If we've got a traitor inside our organisation, how do we know that they won't be in Stella's security detail at the conference?"

"We don't. But I'm sure Stella can handle it."

"We should give her some covert back up," Zoe suggests, "Just to be on the safe side."

"I agree with Zoe. I know that Stella's capable, but if she doesn't know that something's coming, she won't stand a chance." Maddie says, "What do you say, Frank?"

Frank nods, directing his attention first to the three older field agents, "You three are going to need disguises if you're going to blend in during the conference. But, with all due respect, Maddie, I don't know if you can pass as a world leader. They tend to be a bit, well, older."

"I can walk around the perimeter of the conference room and look out for any suspicious activity. The others can let me know if anything changes."

Frank nods again, "Okay. Let's go then, team."

* * *

"You in position, Maddie?"

Maddie looks around the area, ensuring that no one else is in sight, before responding down her communicator, "In position, Dan. What's going on in there?"

"Nothing just yet. I'll keep you posted on what's going on and let you know if anything changes drastically."

The communicator cuts off and Maddie puts her back into her pocket; she leans against the wall with a sigh. She knows that she could be waiting awhile before anything happens (if anything happens at all), so there's not much of a point of staying fully alert if nothing's going on. It's not like anyone's there to tell her otherwise.

She stands there for a few more minutes when suddenly her communicator begins to buzz. She quickly reaches into her pocket and pulls it out, pressing it to her ear and becoming fully alert, "What's going on?"

Dan's voice sounds through the communicator, his breathing laboured and hitched. He must be running, "We've got trouble. Floor 7. Can you get up here?"

Maddie looks over at the sign above the nearest stairwell. Floor 4, "I'll be there in a second. Hold on!"

She pockets her communicator again and runs for the stairwell, hastily running up three flights of stairs up to Floor 7. She reaches the correct floor within a few moments and darts her eyes between the two corridors either side of her, spotting Zoe's red hair through the glass panes of another set of doors. She sprints towards the doors, pushing them wide open when she reaches them, and finds that a man dressed in a black suit is beginning to run in the opposite direction. Another suited man is unconscious on the ground whilst Dan and Zoe are surrounding that nosey reporter, whose face is stricken with panic.

"Dan! What's going on?!"

Dan shouts out orders without even looking back at her, him and Zoe seemingly already trying to help the reporter in some way. Maddie doesn't really have time to ask what exactly they're doing, "Go after him!"

"On it!" Maddie yells back, already running at breakneck speed towards the escaping man. She pushes through the next set of doors just in time to see the man run into the next set of stairs at the end of the corridor, which she sets as her next target. She speeds herself up as much as she can as she continues to pursue the man, gaining some ground on him as the two of them race up the stairs. They run up a considerable amount of stairs until they reach the roof, the two of them stumbling out of the door breathlessly. The man takes a few steps away from Maddie and gets into a defensive stance, although he is still panting and is clearly exhausted.

"Look, we're both tired and there's clearly no way out of here, so why don't you just call it quits and tell me who you work for?"

Maddie's not exactly sure what she's expecting, but she's not totally surprised when the guy smirks and moves into a more stable stance, clearly not considering her suggestion at all. Maddie, now having regained most of her breath, moves into a fighting stance of her own, "Okay then. I guess we're not going with my plan. I guess we're going to have to go with Plan B."

He swings first, his muscled right fist aiming for the side of her face.

She ducks out of the way. A hit to the face and he's won. She can't let herself get taken down that easily.

He's clearly on the offensive. He lashes out once again, this time aiming to punch her in the gut. She kicks out at his chest, sending him back and away from punching her.

She knows that she can't keep avoiding or blocking all of his attacks. That's not how fights work. She has to fight back herself. She has to knock him down. Blocking may immobilise him for a few moments, but it's not enough to knock him down and make him stay there.

She swings this time around, her fist connecting with his shoulder blade. He yells and stumbles back, bringing his right hand up to his wounded shoulder. He looks mad now. _Very_ mad.

She expects him to lunge his fists forward again. It's all he's done so far. So when he kicks at her right leg, knocking her clean off of her feet and onto the gravel covered roof, she completely unprepared for it.

She hisses in pain when she feels the rough gravel scrap against the side of her face, almost making the burning sensation in her right leg feel mute. It's not a nice feeling, to say the least. Her head is pounding so much that it hurts, and a sickening sensation of nausea mixed with exhaustion hits her like a freight train.

 _"Maddie!"_

They're on either side of her, both of them pulling her up by one of her arms. She wipes some of the gravel off of the side of her face, not too surprised when the hand that has just been pressed to the side of her face comes away red. She looks around, frantically scanning the roof for the suited man, "Where did he go?!"

"He was already gone when we got up here." Zoe replies, "Did you not see where he went?"

"N...no." Maddie brings her hand up to the side of her still throbbing head, "I think I might've passed out. The last thing I remember is him knocking me down. I hit my head quite hard."

"C'mon. Let's get her back to MI9."

Maddie glances up at her brother, her head throbbing even at the slow movement of her head, "No, Dan, no. You have to go after him. You _have_ to find out who he works for."

"We can do that later. Right now our priority is getting out of here and back down to Aneisha. Now, come on."


	4. Trojan KORPS Part 2

_"He was already gone when we got up here." Zoe replies, "Did you not see where he went?"_

 _"N...no." Maddie brings her hand up to the side of her still throbbing head, "I think I might've passed out. The last thing I remember is him knocking me down. I hit my head quite hard."_

 _"C'mon. Let's get her back to MI9."_

 _Maddie glances up at her brother, her head throbbing even at the slow movement of her head, "No, Dan, no. You have to go after him. You have to find out who he works for."_

 _"We can do that later. Right now our priority is getting out of here and back down to Aneisha. Now, come on."_

* * *

Maddie sits on the black leather sofa of the room that she and the others have been set up in at MI9 headquarters, Stella and two other agents stood by the door. After arriving at MI9, Stella led Aneisha, Dan, Zoe and Tom to the room they are in right now to look into a communicator that the reporter had supposedly given Aneisha, claiming that the suited man that Maddie had pursued had dropped it. Another agent took Maddie to a doctor to be checked out. The doctor had cleaned out the cuts on her face, made sure that her leg was fine and that she had no serious head injuries. Thankfully, she hadn't sustained any serious injuries from her fight with the man, and she was granted clearance to return to missions immediately.

"It doesn't worry any of you that this was all a bit easy?"

"Easy? You could have been killed!" Aneisha lowers her voice, but it's still loud enough that Maddie can hear her from where she is sat across the room, "Maddie got quite badly hurt by that guy."

Maddie groans as she pushes herself up from the comfortable sofa, crossing the room and standing beside the others behind Tom, "Neish, I'm fine. The worst thing about it all is that my face looks a bit stupid, and that'll be fine in a couple of days. Although, I do have to admit that I don't see how any of this was easy, Zoe."

"Yeah, but MI9 disguises? Someone was bound to spot there were too many agents. It's amazing no-one spotted it earlier." Zoe directs her attention over at Stella, who simply rolls her eyes and turns away from the girl, "I'm sorry, but it is. And what kind of agent drops their communicator? I don't like it."

"Sorry I'm late, I was..." Frank bursts into the room, pausing at the sight of the team sat behind Tom at the computers, "What's going on?"

"Tom's wired up the communicator Jenny Lane found. He's tracing it back to the source."

"You're wasting your time, they'll have covered their tracks by now." Frank response quickly, the computer beeping as he finishes his rushed sentence.

"Nope. Got it!" Tom begins to frantically type away at the computer, "It's a security service signature - the orders definitely came from inside MI9."

"We've got him." Dan briefly glances over at Stella, "Or her."

Maddie looks over at Tom, "So, all you've got to do to find out who it is, is run the service signature through the database, right?"

Tom nods as he continues to type away on the computer, "Exactly. The traitor is..."

The name of the traitor pops up on the computer, the name in question shocking everyone looking at the screen. It can't be possible. It's too far from plausible. It's...

"Frank?"

Tom begins frantically typing away at the computer once again, "I-I must have done it wrong."

"Frank, the message came from your secure log in." Stella says sternly, "Who has access?"

"No-one. And it's iris, DNA and fingerprint locked. No one could have hacked it."

"Give me something!" Stella leans forwards slightly, a hint of desperation and fear evident in her voice, "This is looking really bad."

"Stella, you can't think Frank's behind this. It's Frank!"

Frank begins to stammer, clearly nervous and confused at what's going on all of a sudden, "Maybe if I speak to the two men we captured?"

"Like you spoke to the men we captured in Vault 12? They haven't communicated with us since! I'm sorry, Frank. I'm going to have to place you under arrest until we look into this."

"What?!" Maddie shouts looking over at Stella, "You've got to be joking! It's Frank we're talking about here! You can't do this!"

"I think you'll find that I can, Agent, and I will!" Stella says strictly, switching her attention over to Tom, "Tom, seal his MI9 log in so he can't access the mainframe."

"You know what you can do with that order?!"

"Tom!" Frank's voice cuts over Tom's shot, silencing his protests against Stella's orders, "Stella's right. She has to follow protocol. Do it."

"Frank, this is ridiculous!" Maddie turns to glare at Stella, "Are you seriously doing this, Stella?"

"Yes, agent. I am." Stella says bluntly, turning to address the others as two agents escort Frank out of the room, "Agents, go back to St Heart's. Consider yourselves stood down until we get to the bottom of this."

Maddie's half tempted to argue the matter further, but she refrains herself for the fact that it is futile to try. She has no authority over Stella, none of them do, and as much as Maddie hates to admit it, Stella is just doing her job. She's following protocol. Yes, it's not fair, but that's how the organisation operates. So, unless she can become the Head of MI9, she can't prevent it from happening. It's out of her's, and the other's, hands. They just have to go along with it for now.

* * *

Maddie meets up with her brother, Zoe and Aneisha as Zoe finishes talking about some kind of school play based on MI9, saying that it's supposedly set to be a comedy, something that Maddie finds highly irritating. It's bad enough to hear about how much MI9 is struggling from Stella but hearing it from everyone at the school as well? That's just horrible to bear. Especially since Maddie and the others have zero control over any of the situation.

"I can't take much more of this!"

Maddie nods, "I agree, Neish. This is horrible! Stella just wants us to stand down and let all of this happen...well I, for one, refuse to stand down. I am going to prove that Frank is innocent!"

"You know, we'd be bad agents if we didn't at least look at the possibility..."

The three girls shoot incredulous looks towards Dan, Aneisha the one that speaks up first, "That Frank's a traitor? I don't believe it!"

"I don't like it either, but he did suggest we leave Vault 12 without investigating that heat reading."

"He didn't want us to back Stella up at the conference either." Zoe adds, "Or trace the communicator signal."

"Are we really sure about him? We haven't known him long."

"Are you two being serious?!" Maddie scoffs, looking over at Dan and Zoe incredulously, "You two can't honestly think that Frank's behind all of this! He would never do something like this!"

Tom joins the group walking down the corridor, a dull expression plastered on his face, "They just found information on Frank's secure log in that led them to the stolen Global Vaporiser."

"It could be mind control."

Maddie nods, "Or perhaps somebody manipulated him into doing it."

"Guys, sooner or later we've got to ask ourselves the question...

"Why do we think he's innocent?"

Aneisha moves to stand beside Tom and speaks with determination in her voice, "I know how it looks, but one of the reasons they made me an agent was because I can see what people are really like. And I'm telling you, Frank didn't do this."

"I guess just because I don't know how his account could be hacked doesn't mean it can't be done." Tom says, "What do you reckon, Maddie?"

Maddie nods, "I agree. It'd take a computing genius to pull it off, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible. To be honest, it'd be more shocking if there wasn't somebody out there who could pull it off." Maddie looks over at Zoe, "Zoe?"

"He gave me a new life." Zoe says, "I'm with Frank, no matter what."

Everyone turns to Dan in waiting for his confirmation, his being the last they need for the whole team to be in agreement, "I said we'd be poor agents if we didn't consider the possibility that Frank was guilty. Well, we've considered it. Let's go and prove he's innocent."

* * *

"It means a great deal that you all still have faith in me."

The team stands inside Frank's cell at MI9 HQ, their currently incarcerated leader sat in a plastic chair at the side of the room, knitting some kind of scarf like an elderly women. Despite the desperation and urgency of the situation at hand, Maddie can't help but find the sight of Frank with two knitting needles in his hands hilarious. Anyone would admit that it looks odd. Frank London, Secret Agent, knitting like an old granny.

"New hobby?"

Frank places the knitting on a nearby coffee table, "It was left by the previous occupant of my cell, Mrs Humm."

"You look like you're getting quite good at it." Maddie smiles, "Do you reckon you can knit me a pair of gloves sometime? They'd probably fit better than an overpriced store bought pair.

Maddie's lighthearted statement brings a small smile to Frank's face, something that makes Maddie feel happy and proud at the same time. She's sure that the guy needs something to be happy about with everything going on. That smile soon fades, though, when Zoe draws the topic of conversation back to the current issues at hand, "Frank, if we're going to clear your name, we need something to go on. Who could do something like this?"

"The spread of mistrust, hidden motives, misinformation, manipulation..." Frank pauses briefly before continuing his sentence, "There's only one group capable of this. I was so desperate for it not to be true, I convinced myself it wasn't possible. But it's time to face facts. KORPS are back."

"So it is KORPS. What's their aim?"

"I wish I knew. Getting inside the mind of KORPS is difficult...and dangerous."

"But we've got to understand KORPS in order to figure out their plans, whatever they may be." Maddie sighs looking to Frank, "How do we do that? Nobody knows them better than you."

"Actually, that's not true." Tom contradicts, his statement catching the attention of the five young agents, "There's someone in the cell next door knows them better than anyone."

"An ex-KORPS captain."

"We need to talk to the Grand Master." Zoe states.

Maddie looks at her team mates as if they have gone mad, "Are you guys crazy? We're going to go to the Grandmaster for help? _The Grandmaster_? I know that we're sorta desperate over here, but are we that desperate?"

"It's not like we have any other choice."

* * *

"Ah, visitors."

The five spies stand on the outskirts of the Grandmaster's high security, electronic bar cell, the villain ex-SKUL leader stood in the middle of the room. Maddie's surprised to see that his prized bunny rabbit is not in his hands, but quickly notices the mans pet locked in a cage on a table on the other side of the cell. Maddie has to admit that it looks quite odd. The bunny literally has a cell of it's own inside of the bigger cell.

"We need information about KORPS."

"We?" Even though his face is masked, Maddie can tell that the Grandmaster is smirking as he is talking to Zoe, "One of them now, are you?"

"They're my friends."

"Friends?" He seems to ponder on the word for a few moments before continuing to speak, "Fascinating. And, my, my, it's the girl who destroyed the control panel of my escape craft. Although it was against me, I have to admit that your use of those magnetic pucks for fairly impressive...especially for a mere child."

Maddie smirks, "And I have to admit that I'm surprised that an elderly man like yourself survived a parachute jump from a crashing aircraft."

The Grandmaster scowls but doesn't argue back. Tom is the next person to speak up, "This is a waste of time, he's not going to help."

"I might, if you were to help me."

"What do you want?"

"The General isn't built for prison life - he's off his carrots." The Grandmaster glances over at the bunny rabbit locked in the cage before looking back to the agents, "You can have all the info you want if you promise to get him out."

"Deal!"

The other agents look over at Tom accusingly. Why on Earth would he agree to the Grandmaster's demands so quickly. Yes, they're not exactly high demands, but that doesn't mean he can just agree to them. That's not how interrogations work.

"It's a rabbit!" Tom scoffs, "You have a deal."

"Ask your questions."

"I've got three." Zoe says, cutting straight to the point, "Why arrange for a fake tip-off so an old lady gets arrested? Why steal a device that doesn't work? And why make a half-hearted attempt to kidnap a world leader? None of it makes sense."

"On the contrary, it all makes perfect sense. Revenge."

"Revenge?"

"KORPS think I sold them out to MI9 so I could run SKUL." The Grandmaster explains, "A very hurtful accusation, especially as it's true."

"Has anyone got a violin? I'm welling up." Tom says sarcastically.

"KORPS want revenge on those who destroyed them all those years ago."

Aneisha gasps, "Frank! It's all about Frank!"

"It didn't matter that the weapon didn't work - they didn't want to use it. They just wanted to plant it on Frank."

"And they made the fiasco with the old lady lead back to him too." Dan adds, confusion still plastered on his face despite the logical explanation that they've received, "But why the botched kidnapping?"

"To plant the communicator. That's what led us to Frank. They've been setting him up all along."

"It doesn't matter that none of their plans followed through. They got exactly what they wanted and were none the wiser the entire time." Maddie sighs, "The question is, how?"

"Maddie's right. Face it, only Frank can access his own secure log in." Tom pulls out his spy pod and looks at the status of Frank's log in, shocked at the results he finds, "Someone's using it right now. That's not possible, I sealed it myself.

"Couldn't he have created a second work station?"

"It'd still have DNA, iris and fingerprint locks."

Maddie nods, "Perhaps somebody could access the DNA and fingerprint locks, but not the iris lock. They'd need Frank there with them to pull that off, and surely we would've heard something if somebody went to his cell."

"Unless it was a really old one that hadn't been deactivated."

"They're in the Bunker!" Zoe gasps, the realisation of it all suddenly hitting her, "The old terminals would only have been password protected. That's how they hacked in and made Frank look like a traitor."

"Whoever it is just accessed the Bunker's self-destruct. If it goes off, it'll take the whole MI9 building with it."

Maddie begins to make her way for the door, "We've got to get down there and fast! Let's go!"

* * *

The spy team run at top speed into the underground bunker, Tom instantly making his way towards the old and outdated computer desk. He sits down on the dusty plastic chair as Aneisha, Dan and Maddie move to stand behind him, Zoe hanging back for a few moments as Tom begins to try and work with the old computers.

"I need Frank's old level nine password to shut it down. There isn't enough time to hack it."

"What is it, Zoe?"

Maddie turns around as Dan takes a few steps back to stand beside Zoe, who is standing around on a much higher alert than the others, "Whoever used Frank's old computer to set off the self-destruct didn't have time to get out."

"So where are they?"

"Something's not right." Zoe nods to the pile of KORPS junk at the side of the room, "All that KORPS junk was over there last time. It's moved."

"It's just junk."

Maddie's about to respond to Dan's statement when the pile of trash congregates together presumably magnetically, forming a large android made just out of the old trash. The four standing agents quickly move into defensive stances and Maddie looks over at her brother, "Just junk, huh, Dan?"

The android begins to take rigid steps towards the spies. The four of them split up into opposite directions, figuring that perhaps they can trick the robot by approaching it from all sides. That plan doesn't exactly work, as two of it's limb detach themselves from the main body and target Dan and Aneisha, leaving Maddie and Zoe stood in front of the rest of the robot. Maddie looks over at Zoe nervously as Aneisha and Dan continue to fight their own parts of the robot, "Zoe! Any ideas?!"

The robot swings one of it's arm for the two girls. Zoe reaches over and pulls Maddie down with her, the two of them just about avoiding the androids clutches.

"Tom, keep trying to disarm the countdown! We'll hold the robot!"

Maddie and Zoe rise back up again, the former of the two shouting to the other whilst keeping her eyes fixed on the attacking android, "Maybe if I can get close enough to the android, I can short circuit with my spy pod somehow! It has to have some electrical source otherwise it wouldn't run!"

"It's no use! It's likely well concealed, and it's impossible to stand by it for long enough to find it with how much it's moving around!" Zoe's eyes widen, "Look out!"

The robot viciously swings its arm again. Maddie quickly flips backwards and out of the way before it can make contact with her side whilst Zoe cartwheels out of the way herself.

Maddie looks towards her brother, who is clearly struggling with the robot arm that is attacking him. She rushes across the bunker and latches onto the arm herself, pulling at it with all of her strength in an attempt to release her brother from its grasp. As she tries with all of her might to pull the robot arm away, she yells as loud as she can out to Tom, "Tom, shut down the robot frequency!"

"Got it!"

The robot arm goes limp and Maddie quickly tosses it away from Dan, letting out a held breath when it moves out of sight. Her fear quickly returns at Tom's next statement, "You've got three seconds before that robot comes back online."

Maddie looks down at Dan, who wastes no time in finding a solution to the situation. He rolls over to a nearby electrical box and splices the wires, causing the electric current to reverse and pull all of the robot parts right to it like a gigantic magnet. Maddie extends her hand out to Dan and helps him up, "Nice one, reversing the current to turn the wall into a giant magnet was a genius idea."

Dan smiles back at her and the four of them regroup with Tom at the computer station, a familiar voice sounding through the bunker as two new sets of footsteps echo the large space, "What's going on?"

Stella and Frank join the teenagers at the computer station, Aneisha quickly giving them a brief description of what's going on, "I'll explain later. Frank's got ten seconds to enter his old password and stop the countdown."

Frank moves to the computer as the last few seconds begin to tick on the clock, but he suddenly stops as his hands hover over the keyboard, "What are you waiting for?"

Frank waits a few more moments before frantically typing in his password, what it is making all of the teenagers smirk, "'Lovely Stella'? Seriously?"

"It was ten years ago!"

Maddie smirks over at Frank, "Yeah, that's what they all say!"

Frank ignores her and instead turns to the wall, realisation stricken all over his face when he sees the robot, "Of course. The circle mystery. Not a circle, but an O - the first letter of Odysseus. There's no doubt now. Only one group could be so horribly ingenious."

"It's been a long time, Frank."

Maddie jumps into a defensive stance when a sinister voice sounds from the robot, it's eyes glowing a deep red as it talks. Maddie has no clue who the voice belongs too, but it seems that Frank recognises it, "Crime Minister? I saw you die."

"What did you really see, Frank?"

"The explosion."

"All part of my escape plan. And I wasn't the only one to escape. You'll be meeting lots of old friends in the days and weeks and years of pain to come. KORPS is rising."

The robot's eyes flicker out and the voice disappears, sending the bunker into tense and apprehensive silence. Maddie glances over at Frank, whose face has gone pale and eyes have grown wide. Maddie looks at him sympathetically, "We're going to catch them, Frank."

"Yeah." Dan says, Maddie grateful that he is offering support in the situation, "And when we do, they're never coming back again."

* * *

Maddie walks into HQ later that day along with the others, Frank already stood at the end of HQ holding The Grandmaster's bunny in his hands. He's rambling about the unexpected events of the day to the animal, Dan's voice startling him out of his trance, "You know, talking to a rabbit's the first sign of being a Grand Master."

"It's embarrassing, really." Frank sighs, Zoe, Dan and Maddie moving to stand behind him, "I thought I knew all there was to know about KORPS, but they knew me better. They knew I'd be intrigued by those Omicron symbols. They knew I'd take that stuff back to MI9."

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself." Maddie places a reassuring hand on Frank's shoulder, "We all make mistakes. We can't go back and fix them, but we can try to better ourselves so that we don't make the same mistakes again."

"When did you get so insightful?" Dan asks.

Maddie smirks, "I always have been. You've just never noticed my skills before."

"That's what we're calling them now?"

Maddie rolls her eyes and playfully shoves her brothers arm, quickly turning back around when she hears Aneisha gasp. The agents around the table hastily rush over to the computer station, where Aneisha and Tom are comparing a picture of the reporter and The Crime Minster. The resemblance is uncanny; they almost look like the same person. Wait...

"I knew it! I didn't trust her from the start!"

"Jenny Lane? She was orchestrating the whole thing from right in front of us."

Zoe moves to walk out of HQ, presumably to go after the faux reporter, when Frank stops her from going, "Don't bother, Zoe. She'll be long gone."

"Will get her though." Maddie says confidently, everyone turning around to look at her as she crosses over to the centre table, "KORPS can throw weapons and soldiers and androids and whatever else they want at us, but that won't stop us. I, for one, will not back down to them. KORPS will pay for what they've done."

"Well said, sis."

Maddie smiles over to Dan, "I do try."


	5. Grosse Encounters Part 1

_"Will get her though." Maddie says confidently, everyone turning around to look at her as she crosses over to the centre table, "KORPS can throw weapons and soldiers and androids and whatever else they want at us, but that won't stop us. I, for one, will not back down to them. KORPS will pay for what they've done."_

 _"Well said, sis."_

 _Maddie smiles over to Dan, "I do try."_

* * *

"Students, we have a very important visitor here to see you. This is Mr Grosse."

Maddie looks up from her book and to the front of the room, McNab and Mr Flatley stood with a stern looking man in a dark suit. He has the look of somebody who is proud of their self importance and he seems to be sizing up the students in the room in an attempt to appear intimidating. Maddie doesn't understand why he's bothering, he's already fairly frightening as it is.

"Okay, I'll tell you exactly what I've told all of the other classes. Stay away from the woods."

"Why?"

The word slips out of Maddie's mouth before she can stop herself. She instantly regrets it when Grosse directs his attention to her, crossing the room to stand in front of her desk, "Not that it is any of your business, but we are conducting a formal investigation. A meteorite crashed, so we need to remove anything potentially dangerous from the site. Potential radiation, impact craters, anything that could be a threat to anyone's safety."

"So, let's be clear, no aliens landed in the woods."

"But surely it's in the realm of possibility." Maddie contradicts, the words coming out before she can stop herself once again, "I mean, we can't live on the only planet that can sustain life. The odds of that are surely slim."

"What landed in the woods was a lump of space rock. It happens everyday." Grosse places his hands at the sides of Maddie's desk and leans down, Maddie leaning back to try and maintain some distance from the man, "Do you understand that, girl?"

Maddie's first instinct is to snipe something back, to argue with what he is saying, but she decides that now is not the time. She holds her tongue and nods back at Grosse, who smirks and slowly crosses back to the front of the room.

"Well, onto the next class then?"

Grosse doesn't respond to Flatley's suggestion and instead walks directly out of the room, McNab following after him as Mr Flatley remains in the room, "Well, that sure was...something. Now, Geography."

Mr Flatley turns and begins to write on the board when Maddie feels her communicator buzz in her pocket. She quickly moves out of her chair and makes her way out of the classroom door, Mr Flatley none the wiser as he remains with his back turned to the class. Maddie makes her way for the cupboard and meets with the others within a couple of minutes.

"Some creepy guy came into our class." Maddie says as Dan opens up the cupboard door with his fingerprint, "He started going on about the woods and how a meteorite landed there."

"You're not the only one who's had to deal with him this morning." Dan says, the five of them walking inside and taking their positions in the cupboard, "He came and saw us too."

"That guy has some serious issues."

Everyone nods in agreement as the lift shoots them deep underground and into HQ, the five of them walking out dressed in their respective appropriate clothing. They walk over to the centre table where Frank is already waiting, projecting an image of a satellite onto the back monitor, "The lovely MYRA - a spy satellite owned by the Complainian Government. It's just been shot down in our back yard.

"OK. So, not a meteorite."

"Why did _we_ shoot it down?" Aneisha asks.

"It wasn't us, Aneisha. MYRA maps military sites across Europe, including ours. No-one could crack their encryption, but there was a weak link." Frank flicks his hand to the side and switches the image on the monitor to one of an orange box, "The Black Box."

"OK, having an off day. Is anyone else seeing orange?"

"Geek speak, Aneisha." Tom clarifies, "We call any closed system a Black Box."

Maddie nods, "It's an indestructible hard drive that records anything the satellite sees unencrypted."

"Exactly, Maddie. Whoever shot MYRA down must be after it." Frank looks back to the Black Box, "If this box falls into the wrong hands, it's a serious threat to our national security."

"So, let's go get it."

"Problem, Dan. Area 5.1 have issued a Section Ten."

Maddie bursts into laughter and everyone looks over at her incrediously, "What? Area 5.1? That's actually a thing? It sounds like a bad copycat of Area 51."

"They're a weird little unit left over from the Cold War. They investigate...UFO sightings."

"That quite literally proves my point."

"It gives them the right to lock down the area until they're satisfied there are no green men running around. They've sent their best man."

"Edwin Grosse?"

Frank nods. Dan speaks up next, "You mean there's a major breach of national security lying in the woods, and we can't go after it?"

"Not officially." Frank looks over at Tom, "Tom, what have you got to help the spies stay undercover in the dark?"

Tom crosses the room and grabs a box full of gadgets before returning to the table, placing the box in the middle of it and beginning to pull out numerous gadgets to show the team, "Let's see...Metal detector...night vision goggles...and a thingy..."

"Thingy?"

"Hey, I recognise that!" Maddie points to the thingy, "It's a heat sensor. It'll let us know if anyone's nearby by reading surrounding heat signatures. They'll be especially useful considering that even with the night vision goggles, it'll still be fairly difficult to see compared to how it would be during the day."

"Four thingies, please."

Tom begins to hand out the gadgets to the team as Frank tells them the plan, "We go in tonight. Very carefully. Whoever wants this box has used some serious weaponry. Find it first, and _don't_ get caught."

Maddie nods, "Let's do this."

* * *

"Maddie, any activity?"

Maddie holds her communicator up from where she is hidden behind the tree, "Nothing, yet, Neish. I'll check in with Zoe." Maddie cuts the call with Aneisha and switches to Zoe's communicator, "What's going on near you, Zoe?"

"The metal detectors picking something up."

"What is it?"

"I don't kn-somebody's coming!"

The communicator cuts out suddenly, Maddie quickly trying to re-establish the connection, "Zoe! Zoe! What's happening?!" She switches to Dan's communicator, "Dan, Zoe's not answering! I think something's wrong!"

"Okay. I'll check it out." Dan replies, "Stay at your post."

"But-!"

The connection cuts out. Maddie groans and pockets her communicator, "Well, that was rude." Her communicator buzzes again and she quickly pulls it back out again, "What's going on?"

"Something's not right." Toms voice sounds through the communicator, "Zoe hasn't moved in the past five minutes. I think she might've dropped her communicator."

"Her communicator cut out suddenly when I was talking to her. She said that somebody was coming. Dan said that he'd check it out."

"Aneisha's checking it out too."

"Then I guess I will as well...no matter what Dan says."

"What was that?"

"Nothing." Maddie says dismissively, "What are her coordinates? I'll look into it."

"She's not that far from you. I'll send the coordinates to the map on your spy pod."

"Thanks, Tom." Maddie pockets her communicator once again and pulls out her spy pod, pulling up the map as some coordinates flash on the screen in green.

 _52.0068° N, 0.8040° W_

That's really not that far from where she is. She can probably make it there within a minute if she runs, and that's exactly what she does. She rushes to her location based on the coordinates, finding Aneisha already stood there behind a tree.

"What's going on?" She asks, "Tom said that Zoe hasn't moved in five minutes."

"Well, she's moving now." Aneisha points to the pathway just ahead of them, "She's coming right this way."

"Why?"

Aneisha shrugs, "How should I know?"

Dan runs over to the girls and instantly directs his attention towards Maddie, "I thought I told you to stay at your post."

Maddie groans, "Look, Dan, we can argue about this later. Right now we have to help Zoe. Grosse is chasing her."

Dan sighs but inevitably relents, passing a piece of thin wire over to Maddie, holding the other end of the wire for himself, "You and Neish make sure that you pull this tight on my command, got it?"

Maddie nods as Dan moves to the tree adjacent to the one that she and Aneisha are stood behind, kneeling down to the ground and holding the wire loosely against the dirt. Maddie and Aneisha mimick his actions, looking to him for his signal. Zoe sprints past the wire and moments later Dan gives his signal, the three of them pulling the wire tight as Grosse approaches. He runs right into the wire and lands face first in the mud, the three agents taking this as their chance and running away from the man. When they're a safe distance away Maddie begins to laugh quietly, remembering where they are and that they need to remain undercover,

"You know, since becoming a spy, that was the best thing I've done."

"Are you really comparing _that_ to jumping out of an escape craft and fighting a large android made of junk?"

"Yeah! The android may have been evil, but that guy was just an idiot!"

Their communicators buzz and the three of them instantly abandon their conversation to answer the call. It's Frank, "Team, report back to base immediately."

"What was that about?"

* * *

"We had to abort. Too many rogue classmates on the loose."

Maddie and the others stand down in the base along with Frank, who Maddie thinks is not too pleased with the outcome of the mission. He's not mad at them, but Maddie doesn't blame him for being annoyed at what happened. It would've gone perfectly if it wasn't for all of the distractions they had to deal with.

"And 5.1. That Grosse guy was seriously scary." Zoe says, "He knew about the satellite."

Maddie nods, "I agree with Zoe. Grosse is a right creep!"

"He chased me through the woods! I don't know how I shook him off!"

"Big Boys' Book of Survival Tips. We've got your back." Dan holds his hand out to Zoe for her to hi-five, but she simply holds her own hand up and waves at him, "No, it's a high five. You do this."

Dan lightly hits his hand on Zoe's, who smiles back and slaps his hand at full force. The others laugh at Zoe's odd attempt at a hi-five, Maddie crossing the room and patting Zoe on the back, "You're getting there, Zoe."

"Did we find anything?"

"I got this."

Aneisha hands Tom some kind of tracker, which he takes to the computer to begin analysing. Everyone else stands behind him in silence until they hear Zoe shout, every whipping their heads around to see what's going on. Zoe is stood with some kind of glowing blue gadget in her hands whilst Flopsy is seemingly passed out on the table, a strange blue glow matching the glow of the gadget radiating off of him.

"I think I killed Flopsy!"

Tom walks over to Zoe and pulls the gadget from her hands, slamming it down onto the table and looking at her sternly, "I meant to say...DON'T touch that!"

"What have I done?"

"It's OK." Tom gestures to the device on the table, "The limbic stimulator. My new device. It scrambles neurons in the hippocampus, triggering high-energy REM activity."

"So, what you're trying to say is she sent Flopsy to sleep."

"I did say that, didn't I?" Tom looks over at Maddie, "I said that, right?"

Maddie shrugs, "That's what I heard."

"Bingo!" Tom rushes back over to the computer station and looks through the results that the tracker has given them, "Looks like MYRA was carrying energy sensors. She's picked up heat flares here and here."

"Underground missile launchers."

"Tom, try to look into it further." Maddie suggests, Tom beginning to type away at the computer once again.

"No use. Just bits of memory. We need the Box to get the full data." Tom pauses, switching to footage of some kind of in-air map, "Hang on. What's this?

"A very messy school yard."

"It's St Heart's."

"And look here." Tom zooms into a specific part of the map, a small circular heat signature beeping off of it, "The broom cupboard. MYRA'S found our hiding place."

"OK. Big trouble." Frank says gravely, the agents turning to him with urgency, "Whoever finds that box will have access to military secrets from all over the world, and enough information to blow our cover and put the entire M.I. High operation in jeopardy."

"This is _not_ good."


	6. Grosse Encounters Part 2

_"And look here." Tom zooms into a specific part of the map, a small circular heat signature beeping off of it, "The broom cupboard. MYRA'S found our hiding place."_

 _"OK. Big trouble." Frank says gravely, the agents turning to him with urgency, "Whoever finds that box will have access to military secrets from all over the world, and enough information to blow our cover and put the entire M.I. High operation in jeopardy."_

 _"This is not good."_

* * *

"Frank!"

Frank turns towards the lift to see Maddie walking into HQ, a determined expression on her face, "What's going on? I didn't send out a signal on the communicators."

"I have two reasons for being down here. One: The others are being interrogated by McNab along with some other kids about going into the woods. I don't think he knows who was there exactly, but I didn't want to stick around to find out." Maddie explains, crossing over and sitting down at the computer station, "Secondly, I wanted to do some research."

"Research?" Frank sounds intrigued, "What do you want to research, exactly?"

"Well, I was thinking. That Edwin Grosse guy seems off. I get that that's not a very good explanation, but something's not right."

"What do you think is wrong?"

"I don't know. Grosse seems too...stereotypical."

"How so?"

"You know those alien movies? The one's where the government agent is like a dictator and basically acts like an insane sociopath?" Frank nods in response to Maddie, "He acts too much like that. Maybe that would make sense if he was dealing with a UFO landing at an important location, but not a meteorite crash by a school."

"The guy's just doing his job."

Maddie shakes her head, "No. There's something bigger going on here. Do you mind if I use the MI9 database to search up Grosse?"

"Go for it."

Maddie looks back to the computer and opens up the MI9 database, typing in 'Edwin Grosse' into the search engine. Hundreds of files pop up underneath the search bar, presumably all having some mention, even if it's minute, of Edwin Grosse, "I'll cross reference these results with 'Area 5.1' and see if that narrows it down."

She narrows down the results, which brings up a case file on the system. She opens up the case file, which has an image of an elderly man on the front. Maddie looks over at Frank in confusion, "Okay, that is definitely not the Edwin Grosse that's here. Who is this guy?"

"He's the real Edwin Grosse. The guy that's leading the operation here is an imposter."

"Who do you suppose he could be?"

"I really don't know." Frank reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out his phone, "But I can try and find out what's going on. I'm going to go and make some calls. Get the others done here, and fast."

Frank turns and walks over to the other side of HQ as he places his call whilst Maddie reaches to send the signal out to the others. She presses the button to send the signal out to their communicators; the others walk into HQ about two minutes later.

"Maddie, we found something."

Maddie looks over at the others from her chair, "Frank and I found something too. It's incredibly important in regards to Edwin Grosse."

"We found out who has the Black Box."

"Okay, what I have to say can wait." Maddie leans forward in her seat, "Who has it then? Please tell me that it's not Grosse."

"No, it's much, much worse than that. Mr Flatley has the Black Box."

"What? How?"

Dan shrugs, "He must've gone out into the woods last night and stumbled across it. He's got a bit of a fixation on aliens and paranormal activity. He probably thinks that it was sent here by aliens or something."

"I was going to hack into his laptop cam so we could watch if he moves the box or something."

"No need, Tom. I'm already working on it." Maddie types away on the computer and taps into Mr Flatley's laptop cam, "And...we're in. The student has become the master!"

"Yeah, yeah." Tom rolls his eyes, "Don't get yourself too excited."

"Well, at least we know it's safe." Aneisha says in reference to the Black Box.

"But Mr Flatley isn't."

Maddie hears footsteps approaching from the other side of HQ and instantly turns towards the footsteps, knowing that it's Frank, "What happened? Did you find out who the imposter is?"

"Imposter."

Frank looks over to Maddie, who nods back in understanding. She transfers the case file about Edwin Grosse to the main monitor and gets up from her chair, walking over to stand beside the monitor, gesturing to the image of Grosse, "This is Edwin Grosse."

"In the future?" Zoe asks.

"No, the real Edwin Grosse. He was found tied up in a warehouse." Frank looks over at Maddie, "Maddie suspected that something was going on, and she was right. It seems we have an imposter on our hands."

"So, who is he?"

"We're not sure." Maddie says, "He could be an enemy agent or muscle for hire. He could literally be anybody and he could be after that box for anybody, perhaps not even for himself. We don't have a clue what he is capable of."

"So, how do we protect our head teacher?"

"We need to get the box. This is getting dangerously tricky."

Maddie sighs, "That is a drastic understatement. This is becoming a threat to national security."

"Which is why we need to get that box."

"How? Mr Flatley's not just going to hand it over. Like you guys said, he's obsessed with aliens and paranormal activity. If even a small part of him believes that the box was sent here by aliens, he's not going to give it up." Maddie sighs, "The only other option we have is to take it by force."

"And we can't do that. It'll cause too much of a fuss and could blow our cover." Zoe says.

"Frank? Any ideas?"

"I'll head over to MI9 HQ and try to find some more information on Grosse and about his imposter. Perhaps there's files that can't be accessed via the MI9 database that could help us figure out who he is."

"Should one of us come with you?" Dan asks as Frank makes his way towards the lift.

Frank turns back to the spies as he steps into the lift, "No. Stay here and monitor what's going on through the laptop cam. If something goes wrong or changes, call me straight away. Retrieving this box safely is our number one priority."

The lift door closes, leaving the five spies alone to monitor the footage from within HQ. Tom swaps places with Maddie and sits at the computer, shifting between looking at the case file and the footage as the others begin to talk around the centre table. "Who do you think the guy works for?" Aneisha asks, "I mean, the most logical explanation is that he's been sent here by somebody else to retrieve the box."

"I know it's a stretch, but could he work for KORPS?" Maddie suggests.

"No." Dan shakes his head, "That would make sense if KORPS knew that HQ was here, but why else would they need it?"

"The box contains more secrets than the location of our HQ. They'd likely go after those."

"I'm still not convinced."

"You don't have to be convinced, Dan. We just have to consider it." Zoe says, "We should consider all of the possibilities before we make any assumptions, and KORPS is one of the options we need to consider."

"Alright, then. Fine. Who else could be behind this, then?"

Maddie glances over at Tom, "What do you think, Tom?"

"All we know is that it's definitely not SKUL. I mean, without a name or some kind of I.D number, we can't search for this guy on the MI9 database and hope to find him. He might not even be on the database. He could be working for an organisation that we've never even heard of."

Maddie sighs, annoyed that Tom is right about this. She's not annoyed that he's pointed it out and she hasn't, she's annoyed that it's true. They can't find out who this guy is unless they can get his name or I.D badge or something along those lines. Perhaps Frank will be able to find something at MI9 HQ, he even said himself that there may be some files there that can't be accessed through the database.

Maddie looks back to the computer when an awful noise emits from it. It sounds like a cat being dragged down a chalkboard whilst being strangled! Okay, maybe it's not _that_ awful, but it's still terrible.

"Turn the sound off, Tom."

"No!" Zoe says quickly, seemingly enjoying the awful music, "This rocks!"

"Someone give Zoe a definition of 'rocks'." Tom says, making the others excluding Zoe laugh.

"Has anyone else noticed Mr Flatley's sleeping in there?"

"Yeah, I think he's studying the crash site." Tom says.

"He has this thing about aliens and abductions."

Maddie shrugs, "It's either that or he's far too dedicated as a Headmaster."

"That's it!" Aneisha crosses the room and grabs a box full of disguises before walking back over, "It's time for Dr Drama to do her stuff."

"I hate Dr Drama!"

* * *

"Are you guys in position?"

Aneisha responds, "We're in position. Tell Tom that we're ready to go."

Maddie cuts out the communication with Aneisha to switch to communicating with Tom. They've devised a plan to get the box from Mr Flatley. It's fairly simple, really. Using some of Tom's hacking skills and some alien disguises, they plan to trick Mr Flatley into think that aliens are coming for him. That should hopefully scare him to the point where he is distracted for long enough for the others to sneak in and grab the box right from his desk. Maddie's job is simple: wait for the others and help them escort the box back to HQ. Is it that exciting of a job? No, it's pretty dull, but it's more exciting in her eyes than sitting inside of HQ whilst Tom is doing all of the hacking. Of course, she can do all of that stuff herself, but she'd rather not get in his way when he's in his element.

"Tom, they're ready to go."

"Got it." Maddie can tell that he's smirking even through the communicator, "This is going to be fun."

The communicator cuts out, signalling that Tom is getting to work. Maddie pockets her communicator and moves into a more relaxed stance, knowing that it'll at least be a couple more minutes until anything happens, at least near her. She faces away from the nearby doorHer thoughts are proven correct when almost five minutes pass until somebody runs towards her. It's Aneisha, who's lacking the alien mask but is now holding a full bag in her hands. Maddie instantly walks towards her and looks down at the bag, "Is that it?"

"I'd like to know the answer to that question, as well."

The two girls look in the direction of where the deep voice is coming from to find 'Grosse' emerging from the shadows, holding Dan captive by pining his arms behind his back. Maddie instantly moves into a defence stance and glares over at 'Grosse' whilst Aneisha tries to open the nearby door, which turns out to be locked. 'Grosse' smirks, "I've locked it."

"How did you not notice anything?" Aneisha asks looking over at Maddie.

Maddie shrugs, "He must've snuck up behind me and locked the door from the other side!"

"Ah! Well done, guys. What a perfect little scam. And very entertaining! I watched the whole thing from the sidelines." 'Grosse' switches to a more sinister tone, no doubt to appear more intimidating, "Now, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way."

"Don't give it to him!"

"Actually, now I come to think of it, there is only the hard way."

'Grosse' twists Dan's arm which makes him grunt in pain, Maddie's glare intensifying on the man, "Let him go now!"

"You can have him back if you give me the bag. It's not that hard, girl."

Maddie keeps her eyes on the man whilst talking over to Aneisha, "Neish, give it to him."

"Maddie, no!"

"Shut it, Dan!" Maddie shouts quickly, "Just give him what he wants."

Maddie can hear Aneisha sigh from behind her, but she inevitably relents and begins to walk towards 'Grosse' with the bag. He smirks once again as she approaches, "Yes, that's a better idea. I always think it's best to have your enemies do your work for you. Now, hurry, hurry, hurry. That's it. Bring it over."

'Grosse' pushes Dan away from him as Aneisha holds out the bag. Maddie catches onto Dan to prevent him from stumbling over as 'Grosse' opens up the bag, taking the box from it with an evil smile, "I'd love to stay and chat...but I really must get this valuable box back to my bosses."

'Grosse' turns around to walk away to find Zoe stood behind him, still wearing her full alien disguise, and jolts in surprise. She holds up a device that Maddie recognises, the Limbic stimulator, and fires it right at 'Grosse', causing him to drop to the ground out cold.

Zoe pulls her mask off and crosses the room, smiling over at Dan as she stands beside him, "Limbic stimulator. I got your back too." She holds her hand up to Dan, "High six?"

"Five..." Dan says, giving Zoe a hi-five in victory.

Maddie looks down at Aneisha, who is searching the guy for his I.D, "Okay, let's find out who this guy really is."

Aneisha holds up an I.D card, "Check this I.D. Head of KLAVIKLE. A KORPS agent."

"I had a feeling that it was KORPS!" Maddie gasps, "They sure are evil enough to pull it off. 'Grosse' is going down!"

"Hold on." Dan interjects looking down at the sleeping man, "I've got a better idea."

"Better than prison?"

"It's like Grosse said..." Dan kneels down beside 'Grosse', a smirk growing on his face, "Sometimes it's best to let your enemies do all the work."

* * *

"Are we sure that this is going to work?"

Maddie nods, "Trust me, Neish. It'll work. Dan's idea is foolproof. KORPS are bound to use the box and when they do, we'll have them trapped like sitting ducks. It's only a matter of waiting for them to use it."

The team and Frank are down in HQ, all six agents stood by the computer station, in waiting for KORPS to use the Black Box. Last night, Tom moved the military sites far from their original locations but didn't update the box to these movements, meaning that the box still shows the old locations of the military sites. The team then moved 'Grosse' out to the woods and left the box with him, giving him the impression that he got away with the box completely scot-free. Of course he didn't, but he wouldn't of known that and likely took the box straight back to KORPS. Little would he have known, but he's playing right into MI9's trap.

 _"KORPS intercepted."_

The number of how many KORPS agents that have been arrested grows by the second as the screen flashes red, the team bursting into cheers as the number continues to increase past one hundred. Maddie looks over at Dan with a broad smile, "Genius idea, Dan! That'll teach KORPS to mess with us!"

Dan smirks, quoting Maddie's previous words back at her, "I do try."

"Touche."


	7. The Face of Revenge Part 1

_"KORPS intercepted."_

 _The number of how many KORPS agents that have been arrested grows by the second as the screen flashes red, the team bursting into cheers as the number continues to increase past one hundred. Maddie looks over at Dan with a broad smile, "Genius idea, Dan! That'll teach KORPS to mess with us!"_

 _Dan smirks, quoting Maddie's previous words back at her, "I do try."_

 _"Touche."_

* * *

"And I win again!"

"Okay, what cheat code are you using? You were awful at this game two weeks ago!"

Maddie smirks, "You know what they say, Tommy Boy: 'practice makes perfect'."

Maddie and Tom are currently sat on a bench outside the front of the school playing Super Mario Bros on their handheld game systems. A couple of weeks ago, Tom was absolutely destroying her on the local co-op mode of the game, which made Maddie all the more determined to beat him. With the little time she had between going on missions and doing schoolwork she dedicated herself to becoming better at the game and, sure enough, it worked. She's just beat him five times in a row.

"First to ten?"

"At first it was first to three and then it was first to five." Maddie switches her console off and puts it in her bag, patting down on the shoulder with mock sympathy, "Learn to accept defeat."

"Hey, don't get too confident." Tom scoffs, "Because when I beat you again, you'll be totally crushed."

"Yeah, yeah. You can dream, Tom."

"Our rematch will have to wait." Tom pulls his buzzing communicator out of his pocket, "Look."

Maddie reaches for her communicator, and she doesn't have to pull it out to know it's going off. You know what that means? New mission. The two of them pick up their bags and make their way inside of the school and to the cupboard, the others joining them moments later.

"Who won then?"

Maddie smirks, "I did."

"Nice!"

Maddie hi-fives Aneisha as Zoe opens up the door, the five spies quickly heading inside and shutting the door behind them. Maddie pulls the broom and moments later the team emerge from the lift and into HQ, shocked to find Frank dancing around with headphones on. He's facing away from them, so he's none the wiser that he's in the room watching them.

"Come on down to my party! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Dancing all night to my party! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Come on..."

They walk over to the centre table and Dan reaches out to turn of Frank's music player, causing him to turn towards them and go red in the face. Dan is the first to speak up, recognising what song the lyrics belong to, "Calvin Lame?"

"I say we arrest him for writing." Tom begins to mock-sing the horrible song, "'Come on down to my party...Yeah, yeah, yeah'!"

"Forget arresting him, that song's a sin!" Maddie chuckles, "I say we ostracise him to a deserted island so he can't write any more awful songs!"

"Actually, he didn't write it. This man did." Frank turns to the monitor and flicks an image of another man on it, "His record producer, Cuthbert Peabody."

"So, that guy's a master criminal?"

"Possibly." Frank switches the image on the monitor to some kind of facility, "In recent weeks, top secret computer components have been stolen from this MI9 research unit."

"How?" Tom's voice is full of confusion, "There must be cameras all over."

"Exactly. To bypass the cameras, the thief must have expert knowledge. So, MI9 fitted some computer equipment with homing beacons, and left it out as bait. Sure enough, within days, it was stolen."

"And they traced the beacon back to Peabody?"

"Sorry, but how does a music producer steal stuff from MI9?" Aneisha interjects.

"That's your mission." Frank responds, "Infiltrate CP Records and find out how...and why."

* * *

"What's up, Dan?" Maddie sits down opposite Dan in the fairly vacant canteen, where he is sat eating a plate of chips with quite a miserable expression on his face, "Why do you look like someone's punched you in the face and you're plotting your dastardly revenge?"

"You're lying."

Dan looks up from his plate of chips, "What makes you think that?"

"Well, for one, you're my brother and I can tell when you lie." Maddie lowers her voice a bit for her next sentence, "Secondly, we're spies, remember? It's kind of an important skill of ours that we can tell when somebody's lying." Maddie reaches forwards and takes a chip from Dan's plate, "So, spill the beans, then!"

"I just don't like not being at a mission."

"Eh, you get used to that." Maddie reaches forwards and takes another chip from his plate, "I'm sure that you're not missing much."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't. But that also means that you don't know if anything exciting's going on, meaning that there's nothing to complain about." Maddie decides to change the subject, "So, Dan, I've been thinking."

"Oh, that's not good!"

Maddie glares at him with mock offence. She knows that he's only joking, "Well, I have been, and I just have one question do to with what I've been thinking about."

"What's the question?"

Maddie smirks, "So...you and Zoe..."

"That wasn't a question, it was a statement."

"You're missing the point! I see the sparks that fly between the two of you!" Maddie holds back her laughter at Dan's clear discomfort. She's finding this hilarious, "So, when are you going to admit how much you fancy her?"

"I don't fancy her!"

"Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that."

"I don't!" Dan hits Maddie's hand away when she reaches for his plate again, "And quit taking my chips! They're mine!"

"Hey! Sharing is caring!" Maddie lowers the tone of her voice, "You'd probably let Zoe have your food, because you _love_ her."

"I heard that, you know!" Dan shouts defensively, "Especially the part where you said 'love' in a little sing-song voice!"

"Hey, don't get mad at me for telling the truth!"

Dan groans and begins to move out of his chair, presumably not in the mood to be around his little sister and her pestering about his love life any longer. Maddie quickly grabs onto his arm and pulls him back down with a small laugh, "Okay! Okay! I'm sorry! I'll stop!"

Dan groans again but relents and sits back down, soon going back to eating his chips. She decides to change the subject, "How do you suppose Frank and Stella met? It's weird to think that they used to date, right?"

Dan looks up from his chip and seems eager to join on the conversation. Maddie suspects that the reason that is for the fact that they're talking about someone else's love life as opposed to his, "Probably at some MI9 training academy or something. That'd be my first assumption."

"Why do you reckon they broke up?" Maddie asks, "Knowing Stella, it's probably something to do with protocols or rules. She's severely dedicated to her job...that's probably the reason why she's such a good agent."

"Frank's a good agent too, though."

Maddie nods in agreement, "Of course he is...still, it is weird to think about them kissing, isn't it?"

Dan nods in agreement, a slightly disgusted look on his face. That look soon vanishes from his face when both of their communicators go off from within their pockets. Dan reaches into his pocket and answers his discreetly,

"What's going on, Zoe?"

"Ooh, Zoe, is it?" Maddie chuckles, Dan directing a glare in her direction, "Sorry. Now's not the time."

"Alright, we'll be right there." Dan pockets his communicator and looks back at Maddie, "Peabody's shown up with Lame. They're just outside of the school. Let's go." He rises up from his chair and beginning to walk out of the canteen. Maddie quickly leans over from her seat and grabs a couple of chips from his plate. What? She hasn't had lunch yet, "Maddie!"

"Coming!"

The two of them run outside the front of the school and to Tom and Aneisha, a crowd of students already gathering Lame excitedly. Maddie looks over at Aneisha in confusion, "Neish, what's going on?"

"Peabody's shooting Bryon's music video here."

Maddie looks skeptical, "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Maybe Byron's doing us a favour." Dan shrugs, "At least this way we can keep an eye on Cuthbert."

"I don't know." Maddie begins to turn back towards the school, "I'm going to head down to HQ for a while. You guys keep an eye on Peabody."

"I'm going to come with you." Tom holds up a memory drive, "Zoe got these design blueprints from Peabody's building. We can analyse them and see if it tells us anything about what he's up to."

* * *

"Hey, Tom, I think I've found something."

Tom looks over from his computer to Maddie's, "Those...they look like blueprints."

"That's exactly what they are." Maddie nods, "They're designs for some kind of face scanning device. I think it's called the transmorpher."

"What makes you think that?"

"The fact..." Maddie zooms out from the designs so that the entire blueprint is visible on the screen, "That it says 'transmorpher' in big letters on the top."

"Well, I couldn't see that."

Maddie chuckles as Frank walks into the room, "Have we found anything?"

"Blueprints for a device called the transmorpher."

"The transmorpher's situated at an MI9 unit where Stella's been working."

Maddie smirks, "Oh, so you know where Stella's been working, huh?"

"Uh, yes." Frank coughs awkwardly, "Call down the rest of the team. We need to regroup and show them what you've found."

"Peabody got away."

Maddie, Tom and Frank turn towards the lift, where the others are walking in with frustrated and awkward expressions on their faces. Maddie looks over at them in confusion, "What? How did he get away? I thought you guys were watching him."

"We didn't mean to let him get away! We were busy being happy for Byron!"

 _"Incoming transmission from Agent Knight."_

Maddie looks over at the computer and groans, "Well this is just great. Now we've got to explain all of this to Stella."

Frank leans over the computer and answer the call, quickly moving to project it on the monitor so that everybody can see. Stella is the first to speak, "Agents, have we found anything regarding Peabody's case?"

"We had Peabody...for a few minutes." Aneisha sighs, "He got away."

"What? How did he get away?"

"That doesn't matter." Maddie shrugs, "Besides, it's not all that bad. Tom and I have made progress on those designs."

Tom nods in agreement, showing the team the blueprints on the computer, "It's a face scanner, part of a machine called the transmorpher."

"Yes." Frank directs his attention towards Stella, "It's situated at the MI9 unit where Stella's been working, from where those computer components were stolen."

"Peabody could've used them to make a face scanner."

"OK, one question. Why?" Aneisha asks.

"That we don't know. The scanner merely turns the face into a sonic code." Stella explains, "To actually use it, you need the transmorpher."

"Good luck with stealing that thing!" Zoe scoffs.

"But the Minister for Security is coming for a demonstration this afternoon." Dan says, "And while, you've got a security leak."

"That's why I need you here, to protect the minister and the machine. You have 15 minutes!"

The call cuts out and Frank begins to head for the lift, everyone but Tom following him as he starts giving out orders, "We need to go. Tom, stay on comms. Zoe, keep an eye on Calvin Lame. He may be involved."

* * *

"The transmorpher, Minister, represents the ultimate in disguise. No longer must we rely on costume, make-up and prosthetics. Now we can change an agent's face entirely."

Maddie walks through the MI9 facility behind Stella and the Minister for Security alongside Frank, Dan and Aneisha. They reach the room with the transmorpher, where a couple of scientists are already in waiting to operate the machine.

"So, whose face are you going to give him?"

"I thought my colleague, Frank London." Stella motions to Frank before continuing to lead the Minister towards the machine, "But don't worry, sir. The process is completely reversible."

"Yes. Very funny."

The scientists take over from what Stella is doing and leads the Minister to the machine as Stella moves behind the control, beginning to configure all of the settings as the others stand behind her. Maddie looks up at Aneisha, "Still no sign of Peabody."

"That's a good thing."

"I don't know, Neish." Maddie replies, "It seems far too quiet. I know that it's good that he hasn't come after the transmorpher yet, but that just makes me all the more worried for when he will show up."

"Don't worry about it." Maddie looks over at Dan as he talks to her, "He hasn't shown up yet, so we have nothing to worry about. And when he does show up, we'll deal with it."

Maddie nods back and turns back towards Stella, who is just finishing configuring the settings as the Minister is hooked up to the machine, "Thank you for agreeing to be the test subject for this demonstration, Minister."

Stella looks over at Frank and motions for him to move towards the control panel, to which he obliges and moves his face in front of the scanner, "First, Frank's face is converted into a sonic face code..."

 _"Face scanning in progress. Creating face code."_

"The code is then loaded into the transmorpher, which converts it into transmorphic sonic waves. Those alter your entire appearance." Stella glances over at The Minister, "So, if you're ready, sir?"

 _"Face code accepted. Activate! Transmorphing in three...two...one."_

The machine starts up and begins to transmorph the Minister's face to match the sonic waves recorded from Frank's, and Maddie has to admit that it's sure an odd sight to behold. The man's face is twitching around in all different directions as blue sparks cover his face. Stella says that it's a completely safe procedure, but it sure doesn't look like it. Maddie knows that she won't be rushing to try it out when they start using it for missions, that's for sure.

 _"Face change complete."_

Two scientists unhook The Minister from the machine when the procedure is done, temporarily blocking him from view of Maddie and the others. The scientists step away after a few moments and The Minister moves out of where is sitting, everyone shocked at who he has been transmorphed into. It's _definitely not_ Frank.

"So...How do I look?"

"Hey guys..." Maddie lets out a nervous laugh as she references who the Minister has been transmorphed into, "I found Peabody."

This is bad. This is _really_ bad.


	8. The Face of Revenge Part 2

_Two scientists unhook The Minister from the machine when the procedure is done, temporarily blocking him from view of Maddie and the others. The scientists step away after a few moments and The Minister moves out of where is sitting, everyone shocked at who he has been transmorphed into. It's definitely not Frank._

 _"So...How do I look?"_

 _"Hey guys..." Maddie lets out a nervous laugh as she references who the Minister has been transmorphed into, "I found Peabody."_

 _This is bad. This is really bad._

* * *

"I'm guessing Cuthbert's involved."

"What makes you think that?" Maddie says bluntly. She instantly looks at Dan apologetically when he looks hurt at her blunt words, "Sorry, Dan. I'm just freaking out a bit. How did this even happen?"

"I don't know! The transmorpher should've contained Frank's code!" Stella quickly turns to The Minister, who is staring at his new face in the mirror with wide, panicking eyes, "We've already scanned your face! I can change you back, I promise!"

"Frank, what's our plan here?"

Before Frank can respond a loud explosion goes off, causing the whole room to shake and set a siren off. Maddie stumbles but soon regains her balance as Frank orders two guards to head outside whilst they stay inside and protect the minister. Maddie and the others quickly move over to the Minister and stand protectively in front of him, Frank quick to try and reassure the bewildered man, "Relax, Minister. Those guards are ready for anything."

"Freeze!" Three muscly men run in, brandishing electrically charge batons at Maddie and the others, "Nobody move!"

"I thought you said they were ready for anything!"

Maddie, Dan and instantly move into defensive stances and glare intensely at the armed men when a loud voice sounds from above, attracting their attention immediately, "Good afternoon."

"Oh, yes, but perhaps not ready for that."

Maddie scowls at the man, "Peabody!"

Peabody smirks slyly and looks ahead of the agent, nodding to the space behind them, "Spencer..."

The agents all look to where Peabody is looking as one of the scientists pulls off the helmet of his hazmat suit, revealing him to be the assistant of Peabody. Maddie looks over to Aneisha, who is seemingly frustrated with herself for not noticing who he was earlier. Maddie doesn't blame her for not noticing it. He would've have to have gotten through the security clearance to get into the building. It's at the fault of the buildings security, not her.

"Good old-fashioned disguises. Always the best."

"Hands up! Or whatever people say in these situations..."

As everyone else slowly begins to raise their hands in the air Maddie turns back to Peabody and glares at him. She doesn't want to give into him, at least not without a fight. Peabody begins to make his way down the staircase when one of the men moves his weapon dangerously close to her face, Peabody seemingly amused by this,

"Come on, kid. Put your hands up." He smirks, "You can't win this."

"Agent, do as he says."

Maddie turns around and looks at Stella incredulously. She respects the fact that she's simply doing her job and trying to find a compromise that'll keep everybody safe, but she still doesn't want to admit defeat. What kind of message does that send to their enemies? That they're cowards, that's what. Maddie doesn't want to let that happen.

"Maddie." Dan's voice catches her attention, "Listen to him, alright? Just trust me."

Maddie looks at him oddly. Dan never backs down. Why is he backing down? She's about to argue with him when she notices the pencil tucked behind his ear and it all makes sense. She conceals her smile. Her brother's a genius. She turns back towards Peabody and holds her hands up in surrender, still keeping her gaze fixed on the dastardly man.

"Tie them up, and make it tight."

The armed men move them across the room and begin to tie their hands behind their back, Maddie wincing at how tight her hands are tied. Peabody begins to speak as they're tied up, "What a better way to breach your defences than making the Minister for Security look like me? And I'd imagine you'd like to know how I did this. Spencer, I feel like a tune. Don't you?"

Peabody's assistant turns on an MP3 player, which causes Calvin Lame's new song to emit from it. Maddie groans. She really doesn't like his music.

"It's Calvin's new song."

"Written by me, and containing my very own face code...which, by the looks of things, got into the machine before yours did." Peabody looks at the Minister and gasps at his own appearance, reaching up to touch his own ears, "Blimey, my ears are big!"

The five agents and The Minister are moved to sit by the control panel that operates the transmorpher as Peabody's men begin to rig up a microphone to the machine, Peabody going back to talking about himself once again, "You know when I was young, all I wanted to be was a pop star. But, apparently I didn't have the right face."

"Here we go!" Dan rolls his eyes, "Issues."

"Yes, "issues," and my "issue" is that people are morons! They don't care about music, they just want some chisel-jawed poster boy!" Peabody yells.

"I get it. So, you started writing songs for Calvin instead?"

"Exactly. 15 number ones, I've written. And yet, how many people recognise me out in the street? Huh?" Peabody begins to pace up and down as he talks, "They think I'm a nobody. But I'm not a nobody! I'm a...I'm a..."

"Peabody?"

Maddie conceals her laughter at her brother's comment, which causes Peabody to send a stern look over in their direction. He keeps his gaze fixed on them as he speaks to his assistant, "Spencer...Tell me you've hacked into Squizzle FM."

"No. No. No, he can't!" Stella shouts frantically, "He's sending transmorphic waves down the radio! Millions will be listening! They'll all be transmorphed!"

Peabody ignores her shouts and walks over to the transmorpher, inserting the audio track with his face code on it inside. He grabs the microphone that's linked up to Squizzle FM and holds it inside of the transmorpher as his associates switch the machine on.

 _"Transmorphing in three..."_

Maddie struggles against the restraints, "Stop it now!"

 _"Two, one..."_

"Now, the whole world...will know my face!"

"Stop!"

But it's too late. The transmorpher makes a loud whirring noise as it sends transmorphic waves down the microphone and through Squizzle FM, transmorphing the millions of people listening into Peabody instantaneously. Peabody cackles evilly as the music continues to transmit down the radio station, Maddie trying hard to break through the restraints on her wrists.

"Destroy the machine!"

Peabody's men walk away from them and over to the transmorpher, beginning to hit at it with their batons. Maddie's close to giving up in her attempts to break free when she feels the ropes begin to give way. She's moves her wrists faster and soon, after a decent amount of rope burn dealt to her wrists, she manages to break free. She unties Aneisha and Dan as Peabody's minions step back and Peabody himself begins attacking the machine with a fire extinguisher, clearly desperate to smash it to pieces.

The three of them walk forward and begin taking down the men, Maddie glancing over at Aneisha as she fights one of them off, "Neish, Dan and I will handle his men, you deal with the machine."

Dan turns and begins fighting Peabody's main assistant as two come towards Maddie, one of them lacking their baton. Maddie quickly scans the floor for it and notices it's somehow ended up on the other side of the room. She makes a run for it and grabs it just in time to use it on the approaching men, zapping both of them and causing them to fall to the ground unconscious.

"Not gonna lie, that was much easier than I thought it would be."

"Great, Maddie!" She hears Dan grunts from across the room, "Now, perhaps a little help?!"

Maddie quickly runs over to Dan and helps him up from the ground as the lights dim in the room, signalling that the transmorpher is in operation. Dan and Maddie look towards the machine to find Aneisha strapped into it, clearly struggling against the restraints in an attempt to break free. Her attempts don't appear to be working, "I can't get out!"

 _"Error! Error! System critical!"_

"It's transmorphing her into all of the faces that have ever been scanned into the machine!"

"It's going to explode!" Maddie glances over at Dan in panic, "We have to get Aneisha out of there before it blows!"

Dan's about to run forward when some horrible singing becomes to sound through the room. It's muffled, but everyone can still hear it. Peabody looks away from the transmorpher and frantically looks around the room, "That noise! Where's it coming from?"

Maddie looks around herself in an attempt to find out where the sound is coming from, but she doesn't see anything that could possibly be emitting the awful noise. The noise suddenly becomes a lot less muffled and Maddie looks back to Dan, who is holding his communicator up in the air above him. Of course! The communicator is playing the music! Maddie's surprised that she didn't figure that out sooner.

 _"Face code accepted. Reverse transmorphing in three...two...one."_

Peabody yells in frustration and defeat as Aneisha's face transmorphs back to her own, the awful singing still ringing through the communicator as Tom's voice accompanies it, "Dan, in order to change everybody back, you need to make sure that this is playing down Squizzle."

Dan quickly glances over at Maddie, "You get Aneisha out, I'll play the song down the microphone."

Maddie nods back and quickly runs over to break Aneisha out of her restraints as Dan grabs the microphone, holding it up to his communicator and playing the song down Squizzle FM. Maddie manages to get Aneisha out of the machine as it begins to spark. The three of them quickly dive down as it explodes, sending electrical sparks all around the dark room. The lights eventually come back on as a bunch of MI9 soldiers swarm into the room, instantly pointing their weapons towards an unarmed and alone Peabody. Maddie stands up first, and moves quickly to help the others, as Stella walks up to the surrounded Peabody with a broad smirk on her face.

"Hands up, or whatever they say in this situation."

Maddie looks over at Dan and Aneisha with a smirk, "It's a shame really...he should've just stuck with his day job."

* * *

"Hey, look who it is."

Maddie looks in the direction that Aneisha is pointing to find Calvin Lame walking towards them, a guilty look present on his face. Maddie's not surprised that he looks guilty. She heard from Zoe how much of a jerk he was to all of the students when Peabody left him here. Still, she can't deny that she's curious as to why he's come back. She knows that she wouldn't if she had done what he had. She'd never show her face again.

Listen, guys, I was an idiot. I know I disrespected the people who got me where I am today. You know, the top. So, to say I'm sorry...how about...free tickets to my next concert?" He pulls out some tickets from his jacket pocket, "For everyone!"

All of the students run towards Calvin to claim their tickets. Maddie glances over at Dan, who is nervously rubbing the back of his head as he attempts to talk to Zoe, "Maybe we could go together?"

"Yeah, that would be great!"

Dan smiles and walks towards Calvin to claim his tickets, Maddie smirking at the newfound confidence evident in the way that he is moving. As if he was afraid that she'd say no! She looks over at Zoe, still smirking, "I thought he was never going to ask you out on a date."

"A date?"

Maddie nods, "He probably would've asked you sooner but, well...my brother's awful when it comes to feelings. So...good luck with that." Zoe looks nervous so Maddie quickly reassures her, "Don't worry, Zoe. It'll be fine. Dan may not be the best at feelings, but he always makes stuff fun. You'll both have a great time."

Zoe smiles back at her, making Maddie feel proud of her reassurance abilities. She also feels pride for her brother. He may not be the best at feelings, but at least he's working his way towards admitting them. Not many people have the courage to do that.

"And Byron...I posted your video on the internet." Everyone looks over at Byron, who is beginning to walk back inside when Calvin stops him, "And guess what? You went straight to number one!"

Calvin hands Byron a frame with a golden record inside of it as the students swarm around him and cheer, Byron standing around completely flabbergasted at all of it. As the cheers die down Byron turns to Zoe, extending the large frame out to her, "You should have it. Don't let it get to your head."

"Thanks, Brian." Zoe smiles and takes the frame, "I think it's really cool that you're still able to be yourself."

"Are you kidding?! People don't want Brian. They want Byron." Byron ruffles up his neatly combed hair and loosens his tie, taking his guitar back from Aneisha with a smirk on his face, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to mingle and stuff."

"You know, I never did see his music video." Tom says with a smirk, "I mean, seriously, can you imagine?"

Maddie shudders in fear, "I don't want to imagine it, Tom. I really, _really_ don't."


	9. Mission: Incredible Part 1

_"Are you kidding?! People don't want Brian. They want Byron." Byron ruffles up his neatly combed hair and loosens his tie, taking his guitar back from Aneisha with a smirk on his face, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to mingle and stuff."_

 _"You know, I never did see his music video." Tom says with a smirk, "I mean, seriously, can you imagine?"_

 _Maddie shudders in fear, "I don't want to imagine it, Tom. I really, really don't."_

* * *

Maddie leans back in her uncomfortable coach seat with a sigh. Her handheld video games system just died. She has an adapter for it, but the coach doesn't have any plug sockets for her to use so it's pointless. Besides, she doubts that she'll have time to play any video games with what's going on. There's a reason why they're going to Boldovia. They have a mission. They don't know any of the details of the mission, but Maddie suspects that it'll be a high risks, all stakes mission. They've never had a mission in another country before, something that both excites and worries Maddie. She's excited because it's something new, but she worried as she has no idea what to expect.

"You know, I still don't get it." Aneisha says from her seat beside Maddie's, "How did Frank manage to get you on this trip?"

"He spoke to Mr Flatley." Maddie replies as she pockets her games system, "He said something about how 'having a younger student go on the trip would inspire the other students to broaden their horizons'. When Mr Flatley asked who he should send, he put my name forward." Maddie lowers her voice, "The suggestion won't broaden anyone's horizons, but at least it allows me to help with the mission. That's the important thing."

"Oh, Dan! You're so funny!"

Maddie and Aneisha exchange grossed out expressions at the sound of Melissa's obnoxious laugh behind them, which is soon accompanied by an awkward laugh from Dan. Poor Dan got stuck next to Melissa when they got on the coach. Aneisha, Zoe and Maddie were originally all going to sit together at the back, but another group of students got there before they could. They went for the next best alternative, two of them sitting next to each other whilst the other sat on one of the seats adjacent to the others. Zoe went for the latter position and chose to sit beside Tom, who was happy wherever as long as he got the window seat. That left Dan sitting solo, well, for around about two minutes, as McNab sent Melissa Allbright to sit with him when they ran out of room at the front. Dan, not really having much choice in the matter, had to go along with at the time. It's been two hours since they got off the plane and onto the coach, and Maddie suspects that he regrets going along with the situation right about now.

"Students, I have exciting news." Maddie looks to the front of the coach and tries to listen to Mr Flatley over all of the students' rabble, "We are minutes away from our destination! We'll be heading straight in whilst the coach driver takes all of our stuff to the hotel."

Some of the students groan at that. Maddie doesn't blame them. To be honest, she reckons that half of the students on the trip only wanted to come to get away from school and to stay in a nice hotel. Not many of them wanted to come to see Boldovia. Nor does Maddie, honestly, but she does have an important reason for coming along. Besides, she does know a decent amount of Boldovian, so perhaps she can find some time to expand her knowledge on the language. She's not fluent in it, yet.

The coach comes to a stop a few minutes later outside of a large, important looking building and the students disembark the hot and stuffy vehicle, nobody more relieved than Dan to be out of the coach. Maddie looks to him with a smirk, "Enjoyed the journey, did you, Dan?"

Dan glares at her grumpily, "Shut it."

Maddie laughs but doesn't press the matter further, instead joining the other students walking inside of the building. They're led to a room with a single, old TV and a bunch of plastic chairs, Maddie and the others quick to sit at the back this time around. A burly looking woman walks in once everyone is seated and turns on the TV without saying a word, playing an awful Boldovian commercial on it. Maddie doesn't pay much attention to the video, only really noticing a young girl and an older man holding a guitar being on the screen as the video cuts out. Everyone seems relieved when it ends.

"Welcome to Boldovia. I am your guide, Olga Backovabus." The woman says with a stoic expression on her face, her gaze darting around the group of students looking at her fearfully, "Follow me. No running. No chewing gum. No talking."

"She's a female version of McNab!"

"No." Maddie looks over at Aneisha with wide eyes, "McNab's much nicer than her! And that's saying something!"

The students, McNab and Flatley follow the warden woman out of the room and through some corridors, Byron stopping at the sight of some odd butterfly prints on one of the walls, which one of the employees is currently trying to cover up with some posters, "'Scuse me, Miss. What is this?"

"The Butterfly Movement. They claim to be freedom fighters, but they are just puppets of foreign imperialists seeking to overthrow our beloved government."

"Yeah, right." Maddie and Zoe both stop when they hear Dan scoff from beside them, speaking low enough so that the woman can't hear, "The Boldovian government's a vicious regime. The Butterfly Movement are the good guys. MI9 would help if they could, but it's too dangerous."

"How is it that I'm the one who can speak Boldovian but you know more about the country than me?"

Dan shrugs back. Maddie leaves the matter at that and the three of them follow the others into the next room, a very pungent smell hitting them head on as they walk in, "What's that horrible smell?"

"It is cheese, the national food of Boldovia. We would like you each to have a memento of your visit here today." Workers begin handing out rocks of cheese to the teachers and students as Olga talks, "Like your Blackpool rock, our Boldovian cheese rock has writing running through it."

Amongst the workers handing out the cheese rock, Maddie and the others recognise one of the workers as she hands some cheese rock to Dan. It's Stella. Maddie nods to Stella, giving her the signal that everything is going well, and she nods back before walking off again. Maddie turns and looks at Dan, who supplies them all with the information hidden on his piece of cheese rock.

"Rendezvous at 905 Splek Strasse."

* * *

"It's not like Frank to be late. You think there's a problem?"

"Define problem."

Maddie looks over at Stella in confusion, "What do you mean, Stella?"

The five young agents and Stella are currently stood in their small base of operations in Boldovia in waiting for Frank, who has gone to collect their contact in Boldovia. Maddie doesn't understand why, but Stella almost seems reluctant to the thought of the contact coming to their base. Perhaps the contact's a woman. That would explain Stella's distasteful actions. As much as they deny and avoid it, Maddie knows that there's something or was something there between Stella and Frank. She doesn't know what exactly, but she knows that it was there.

"Agents, I'd like you to meet a really old friend of mine, Janus."

Maddie turns around as Frank walks in with a man with thick, curly hair. Okay, so it's definitely not a woman. That crushes all of Maddie's theories, annoyingly.

"Like the Roman God who looks both ways, to the future and the past."

"That was you on the tourist film." Aneisha adds.

"You're right, Frank." Janus glances back at Frank with a smile, "They're sharp."

"Janus is Boldovia's most famous folk singer."

Maddie hears Stella let out a long sigh beside her before she speaks up, "Hello, Janus."

"Stella! Look at you!" Janus surges forwards and kisses Stella's cheeks, something which makes Maddie jump back in shock. This guy sure is...eccentric, "You haven't changed a bit."

"Nor have you." Stella says bluntly, taking a few steps back from Janus, "Now, if you don't mind, we're on a tight schedule."

"Yes, sir." Janus looks back to Frank again with a smirk, "So firm. I love it."

"Incredibly, Janus is an MI9 informant. It's because of him we're here."

"I recently discovered that the Boldovian Secret Service, SNARL, have developed a device codenamed Aardvark." Frank flicks an image of this so called 'Aardvark' onto the monitor, "It does to computers what its namesake does to termite mounds. It breaks in and sucks out all the data in the blink of an eye."

"At the same time it infects the machine with a virus that wipes everything on the network."

Stella nods, "If a SNARL agent plugs the Aardvark into a computer connected to the MI9 network..."

"The Boldovians would have the location of every spy base and monitoring station in the world!"

"Which means that they'll have the identity of every agent, records of every mission and not to mention the blueprints for all of our gadgets!" Maddie gasps, "If SNARL uses the Aardvark against us, it will destroy MI9 and render the safety of our national security in jeopardy."

"Then we'd better use it against them first." Dan says, "Where's the Aardvark now?"

"It's in a high security vault, in the middle of SNARL HQ." Frank switches the image on the monitor to that of a map of some kind of facility, "There are cameras with motion and heat detectors all along this corridor, and when you get to it, the door is 600 mil of reinforced steel."

"One of these days, you're going to have to make it hard for us." Tom says, the others laughing lightly at his comment.

"This is no laughing matter."

"So, how do we get in?" Zoe asks, moving the conversation back to what's important.

Frank motions to a point on the map, "Through this ventilation duct."

"What would spies do without them?"

Maddie smirks over at her brother, "They'd probably be out of a job, for one."

"A SNARL agent is scheduled to collect the Aardvark at 1800 hours this evening." Janus explains, "An attack on MI9 is imminent."

"Your mission is to steal the Aardvark before the Boldovians can launch an attack. The lives of hundreds of agents and the state of the country depend on it." Stella orders in a steady, orderly voice.

"OK. Let's do this."

* * *

"I said I was fine with a dress, I didn't say that I was fine with wearing a yellow dress."

Dan shrugs, "What's wrong with yellow?"

"I look like a sunflower!" Maddie groans, "I literally would've be fine with looking like any other flower! You know that I hate this dress! It was Mum's idea to get it, not mine! Why did you even pack it?!"

"Maybe don't make your brother pack your bag for you next time."

Maddie hushes her voice as they approach the building, still keeping her glare fixed on her brother as the five of them walk by, "Oh, I am so getting you back for this."

"Yeah, well, you can get him back later." Aneisha says, her voice cutting over Maddie's angry ranting, "Right now, we all need to focus."

"Aneisha's right, Maddie." Frank's voice sounds through the minuscule communicator Maddie has hidden in her ear, "You'll be attending a reception, at the Ministry of Culture. Unbeknownst to the staff at the Ministry, the building houses the entrance to the headquarters of the Boldovian Secret Service. It is literally a front for SNARL."

They all head inside of the building, where metal detectors and guards are already waiting to inspect them. Maddie passes through without a hitch, the communicator in her ear has been designed to contain no metallic parts, thankfully. She walks through to the main hall and regroups with the others, Melissa walking over with her clipboard to address Zoe and Dan.

"Dan, Zoe, you're on stage at six."

"We'll be there." Dan says with a nod, Melissa smiling back and quickly moving on to tell the next performers when they'll be on stage.

Janus walks over to the group in a brown leather jacket and striped top, Tom the first to greet him, "Hi, Janus, how's it going?"

"Not good." Janus responds solemnly, "I just got word back from my mole that Olga Backovabus is the SNARL agent who's going to collect the Aardvark."

"I knew there was something fishy about her!"

"I just knew that she was terrifying from the start." Maddie shudders, "This is getting more difficult by the minute. We'll have to be extra careful from here on out."

"In the library, find this book." Janus hands Zoe a piece of paper with the name of a book on it, "Inside is a hand scanner. It will open a secret doorway. The entrance to SNARL."

"How do we operate the hand scanner?"

"Leave that to me." Janus smirks. He walks not too far from where they're stood to where Olga is, quickly greeting her warmly and shaking her hand, "Olga! Very good to see you. Super evening, huh?"

"Yes." Olga replies stoically, "Thank you."

Olga marches off and Janus walks back over to the others. He pulls a plastic-looking material from his hand and hands it over to Zoe, Maddie smiling at the sight of what it is, "A biometric facsimile?" She looks over at the others, Tom being the only one who seems to understand what the device is, "When you place the glove on the scanner, it'll think you're Olga. It's genius."

"Zoe, Maddie and I will go in as planned. Aneisha, you keep our tour guide occupied." Dan looks over at Tom, "Tom, tactical back-up. You're the eyes and ears of this op."

"Don't forget the brains."

"I thought that I was the brains of the operation." Maddie interjects, "I mean, I did beat you at Super Mario Bros the other week."

"That's hardly a test of intelligence."

"That's besides the point."

"No it's not! That's exactly the point!"

"Guys!" Aneisha's voice cuts above Maddie and Tom's petty argument, effectively silencing the both of them, "Can you both debate about who's smarter later? We kind of have something important going on here."

"Aneisha's right." Zoe adds, "Olga's going to pick up the Aardvark in 45 minutes."

"They're right. Let's just agree to disagree."

Tom nods and looks down at his watch, pressing the small button on the side of it and starting his countdown clock, "The clock is running."

"Alright, let's do this!"

* * *

"Ugh! I am so glad to finally be out of that ridiculous dress!"

"You don't sound glad."

Maddie laughs at Zoe's comment but brushes past it. Maddie and Zoe are currently in the library, changed into appropriate clothing for the mission, and are scanning the room for the book that matches the name that Janus gave them. Dan walks into the room a few moments later, Maddie smirking when an idea comes to her mind. She did say that she'd get him back for the dress...

"Hey, Zoe. Aren't you feeling a bit nervous?"

"Nervous?" Zoe sounds confused, "About the mission?"

"No. I'm talking about the scene that you and Dan have to do tonight. Because, you know, it's Romeo and Juliet. And you've got to do it in front of all those people." Maddie smirks over at Dan, who is sending a sharp glare in her direction the longer she talks, "Plus, Dan's breath smells terrible!"

"Why would it matter if his breath smel-?"

"Okay! Okay! Let's get back to the mission!" Dan crosses the room to stand beside Maddie, lowering his voice and glaring down at her as Zoe walks to the other side of the room, "Will you cut it out?"

"I told you that I'd get you back for the dress." Maddie smirks, "Besides, I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think Zoe really understood what I was talking about."

"Is my breath really that bad?"

Maddie reaches into her pocket and pulls out a single mint from a packet, "Here."

"Why do you have a breath mint in your pocket?"

"I think the question is, why don't you?" Maddie replies before crossing the room to stand beside Zoe, "Still not found it?"

"There's a lot of books here and they're all in Boldovian."

"That's it!" Maddie crosses over to a book on the other side of the room, "It translates to 'The History of Cheese'. Zoe, use the glove on this book."

Zoe nods, crossing the room and using the device that Janus gave them to scan Olga's handprint into the scanner concealed within the book, causing a hidden door to open to their right. Maddie smirks, "Bingo!"

"Welcome to SNARL."

The three of them walk through the door and down into the hidden facility, soon greeted by bleak hallways and many staircases. They walk down the first set of stairs to head deeper into the facility when they hear footsteps approaching. They all quickly jump back and lean against a nearby wall, letting out collective sighs of relief when two marching guards walk by without even noticing them.

"You're coming up on the maintenance room."

Janus' voice down the communicator gives Maddie a spark of hope as they continue to traverse through the cold and honestly rather dystopian facility, and that feeling of hope was not unfound, for within minutes they have safely reached their destination. Maddie closes the door behind them as Dan and Zoe get to work on opening up the ventilation shaft, which they manage to do in seconds thanks to the tools at their disposal. Dan calls Maddie over and the three of them head inside of the ventilation shaft, Dan at the front and Maddie at the back of the group. They continue to make their way through to where they need to be when Dan suddenly comes to a halt, bringing the two girls behind him to an abrupt stop too.

"Dan!" Maddie groans, "What'd you stop for?"

"We've run into a little problem."

Maddie moves around Zoe, with much struggle due to the small space in the air vent, to sit beside Dan in the vent, freezing at what lies further down the vent, "It's a RAT."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"I mean, it's a Remote Anti-Intruder Tactical device. It's like an autonomous robotic guard." Maddie explains, "Tom and I have seen the blueprints for one before, but neither of us have ever seen one in person. I have to say, they're pretty cool."

"Yeah, but are you forgetting the fact that RAT thing can chew through solid steel?" Tom's voice sounds through the communicator, "Don't forget about that part."

"How could you forget that?"

"I was getting to it!" Maddie glances over at Dan, "I could reprogram it if I had the right equipment to open up it's control unit, but none of our stuff that we have on us will be able to pull it off. We need another plan."

"Luckily I have one." Dan turns to look over at Zoe, "Zoe, do you still have your stick of Cheese Rock?"

"Here." Zoe says, handing over the cheese rock no questions asked.

Dan takes the rock and some material from within his pocket, using both the items to fashion a DIY slingshot type contraption. He puts the rock in the slingshot and aims it directly at the approaching RAT, "Chew on this, ratty!"

The cheese rock goes right into the RAT's mouth, causing it's whole system to short circuit and malfunction, rendering the RAT unusable. In other words, they don't have to worry about it anymore.

"What do you know? Rats don't like cheese."

Maddie smiles over at her brother, "Nice one, Dan! Now, lead the way to the Aardvark!"

Dan nods back and continues through the ventilation shaft, Zoe now at the back of the group instead of Maddie. The three of them continue through the vents for another few minutes until Dan abruptly stops once again, causing Maddie to crash into the back of him and Zoe to crash into the back of her, "Dan! You've got to stop doing that!"

"This is it."

"Are you sure?"

Dan nods. Maddie trusts his judgement and moves to lift up the grating of the shaft, Zoe quickly moving to help her pull it up. They pull it up with not too much struggle and move it to the side, giving the three of them a perfect top-down view of the room where the Aardvark is stored. Let's just say that it is _very_ well protected.

"I see laser beams and the floor looks pressure sensitive. The usual stuff."

"Right." Maddie nods, although there isn't much confidence in it, "It's just business as usual."

This is going to be tricky.


	10. Mission: Incredible Part 2

_Dan nods. Maddie trusts his judgement and moves to lift up the grating of the shaft, Zoe quickly moving to help her pull it up. They pull it up with not too much struggle and move it to the side, giving the three of them a perfect top-down view of the room where the Aardvark is stored. Let's just say that it is very well protected._

 _"I see laser beams and the floor looks pressure sensitive. The usual stuff."_

 _"Right." Maddie nods, although there isn't much confidence in it, "It's just business as usual."_

 _This is going to be tricky._

* * *

"Okay, that's the last clip." Maddie says, fastening the last clip connecting Zoe to the rope that will extend her down through the open grating, "You're all set, Zoe. Good luck."

Zoe nods back and jumps down through the hole, Dan holding the rope steady whilst Maddie watches Zoe get lowered down. There's a magnet attached to the top of the vent that'll keep the rope stable, but it needs to be moved by a pair of hands so that Zoe is lowered to a point where she can swap out the fake Aardvark for the real one without triggering any of the defence systems. That's where Dan comes in. Maddie had offered to help him hold the rope as they were hastily setting up the mechanism, but he said that it'd be better if she acted as the eyes of the operation to let him know when to stop lowering Zoe and when to pull her up. Maddie, as usual, trusted his judgement and went along with his plan.

"Nice and smooth, Dan. And...stop!" Dan holds the rope firmly on Maddie's command, suspending Zoe at the perfect distance from the Aardvark so that she can retrieve it, "That's perfect, Dan. She's at just the right distance there."

"Uh oh, Backovabus is on her way."

Maddie taps her hand to the side of her communicator, "That's far too early! Neish, you got to stop her. I don't mind how but you have to stop her from collecting the Aardvark for long enough that we can do this and get out of here. Do you think you can do that?"

"I'm on it."

The communication cuts out and Maddie turns back to Dan, who is clearly struggling with the rope. It's not that Zoe weighs much, it's the fact that she's carrying so many gadgets and he's extending her down quite a far distance. Either way, he doesn't look to be coping with it well. She would offer to help him with the rope, but she knows that he would refuse her help. If not for his pride, for the fact that all of the sudden movement could jeopardise the mission. All it would take would be one wrong move and the rope could come loose, sending Zoe right into the lasers and pressure sensitive tiles. They can't let that happen.

"Zoe's doing well." Maddie says, "Just keep holding her steady, Dan, and we should be fine."

"Should be?" Dan grunts, but Maddie can hear the playful tone in his voice even through his exasperation, "I thought you'd have a little more faith in me, Mads."

Maddie smiles at her brother's lighthearted comment, but quickly switches back into her 'mission mode'. They need to focus. They have a lot riding on this mission, and they _can't_ fail it. They're protecting their country's national security here. There is no room for error on this one.

"Sorry, guys, I did my best but the bus is headed your way."

Maddie looks over at Dan, trying to conceal the fear on her face from her brother. She doesn't want to worry or stress him out too, it could make him drop Zoe, "Olga's coming."

"How's Zoe doing?"

Maddie looks down through the hole at Zoe, "She's swapping out the fake Aardvark for the real one."

Maddie watches as Zoe switches around the two devices successfully and moves to rearm the security lasers around the fake Aardvark, thus ensuring that it looks as if nothing was ever tampered with. However as she fixes up the mechanism the Aardvark begins to slip from Zoe's hand, soon tumbling down to the dangerous lasers below. Maddie gasps in panic and a sinking feeling settles in her chest, her thinking that it's all over, when the rope extends just a little and Zoe catches the Aardvark, saving the whole entire mission from being compromised.

Zoe quickly moves back up and fixes the laser mechanism, Maddie taking a moment to shake the feeling of dread out of herself before giving the order to Dan, "Alright, pull her up."

Dan pulls Zoe back up into the vent and quickly moves to dissemble the rope mechanism and realign the removed grating as Maddie takes the Aardvark from Zoe, safely storing it in the pocket that was made to house it on her belt, "That was something down there, Zoe."

Zoe looks confused, "What do you mean?"

"Don't worry, it's a compliment. Trust me."

"Okay, it's all packed up." Dan says, beginning to make his way back in the direction that they came, "Let's get out of here."

The three of them crawl back through the cramped ventilation shafts and back out into the storage room from where they entered, Dan quickly resealing it once they're all out. They've got to make sure that they cover their tracks, otherwise planting the fake Aardvark would've all been for nothing. Once the entrance to the vents is sealed once again they head out of the storage room and back to the main entrance, keeping their voices down to avoid being detected.

As they reach the door Zoe uses the glove on the panel, which only causes the panel to flash red, "The glove has malfunctioned!"

"Tom." Dan switches on his communicator, "You need to re-configure the hand scanner so it opens to my touch."

Maddie tunes into the communicator feed herself as Tom responds, saying that he'll try to re-configure the hand scanner from the other side like Dan said. He doesn't say anything for a few moments before he speaks up again, saying that he can't re-configure the system from his side. Apparently the computer on his camcorder isn't powerful enough to access the SNARL systems, something which honestly doesn't surprise Maddie too much. Even with the advancements in MI9 technology, it's still not possible to fit a supercomputer in such a small device.

"Keep trying!"

"I am, but I can't help from this side." Tom responds, "You're going to have to do it manually."

Dan looks over to his sister instantly, "Maddie?"

"I've got this."

Maddie kneels down in front of the control panel and pulls off the front plate, exposing all of the wires hidden inside of the panel. She rapidly works her way through the wires in an attempt to reconfigure the controls, pulling herself back to all of the information about wire reconfiguration that she learnt during MI9 training.

"Olga is going to discover the fake Aardvark soon. You need to hurry."

"I can do this!" Maddie responds, irritated by the statement made by Zoe. She knows that they can't do much to help right now, but she'd at least appreciate some moral support, "I just need time to think!"

"Okay then, think, Maddie." Dan kneels down beside her, "You're good at that. Just...just think of a way to get us out of this. Visualise how the wires should look. I know that it's in your head somewhere, Maddie. I know it is. You just have to find it."

Maddie nods and takes a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment to picture it in her head...she's got it. She quickly opens her eyes again and works away at the wires, following the blueprints that she's set up in her own head.

"Quick, Maddie, they're coming!"

Zoe's panicked voice does nothing in settling Maddie's nerves, but it does motivate her enough to rush what she's doing slightly, meaning that she manages to reprogram the scanner just in time. She quickly presses her hand against the scanner, which thankfully opens the door, and pulls Dan and Zoe out of the facility with her, locking the door behind them and trapping the two approaching guards behind the locked door.

She turns to Tom with a smirk "So does that prove that I'm smarter than you?"

"Again with this!" Tom exclaims, "I could've done it if I had a better computer to work with! This doesn't prove anything!"

"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry! I'm just messing around!" Maddie reaches for the Aardvark and hands it over to Tom, "Let's just sort out the Aardvark, okay?"

"You guys should go change back into your formal clothes." Aneisha suggests, "Dan and Zoe are supposed to be going on stage in a couple of minutes."

"Wait, I have to put that stupid dress back on?! Quick, send me back in to fight Olga!" Maddie yells, "I'd rather do that than wear that dress again!"

"Come on!" Dan grabs Maddie's arm before looking back to Tom and Aneisha, "We'll see you guys out there in a few minutes."

"I'm still going to get you back again for that dress!"

* * *

"Alright there, sunflower?"

"Shut it, Top Hat!" Maddie retorts with a glare, making a reference to Tom's ridiculously classy suit and tie.

Tom smirks back, "Okay, don't get your petals in a knot."

Maddie's glare on Tom intensifies but she holds her tongue when Aneisha gives her a pointed look. Of course Tom is her friend, but sometimes he can seriously get on her nerves. Although, she does wind him up too, so perhaps she deserves it. Actually, in retrospect, she _definitely_ deserves it. She turns towards the stage as Melissa announces Dan and Zoe's performance begrudgingly, clearly not happy that Zoe is the one performing with Dan and not her. Maddie still doesn't really understand how Melissa can have a crush on her brother, but Melissa has always been a bit odd.

"Where's Janus?" Aneisha asks, looking over at Maddie and Tom, "He's going to miss it."

Maddie shrugs and turns to watch Dan and Zoe's performance, which is going surprisingly well. Dan's remembering all of his lines and Zoe's very good at showing the correct emotions through her facial expressions, something that you wouldn't suspect judging on her usual demeanour. It's not as impressive as her spy skills, but it's still impressive to watch. Their performance is going smoothly when a loud alarm goes off in the hall, everyone watching instantly rising out of their seats in panic and confusion. Maddie and the others calmly make their way out of the building along with the running students and teachers, knowing that acting calm is the best way to act in the situation.

Upon regrouping outside, Janus runs up to the team and yells to them exasperatedly, "Olga's raised the alarm! She is on to us, we've got to get out of here!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" Janus replies quickly, "We must go now!"

Maddie doesn't ask any further questions, instead turning in the opposite direction and running as fast as she can alongside the others away from the building and Olga. They run through the streets of Boldovia all the way back to their base of operations, running into the secret building exasperated and still slightly confused. Frank and Stella are already there waiting, seemingly aware of what's going on.

"The mission has been compromised, this is an emergency evacuation." Stella motions to the open back of a loading van that's by the back entrance of their hideout, "Get inside."

"My cover has been blown. I'll be arrested if I stay here."

"You too then, old friend." Frank says, Janus nodding back and joining the agents in the loading van, "We'll smuggle you and the Aardvark back to the UK. It will take a few days." Frank hands a small pill to each of them, "These will make the journey bearable."

"What are they?"

"Knockout pills." Stella replies, "You'll wake up in St Heart's safe and sound."

The team glances around at each other apprehensively. Once they take the pills, they won't be able to do anything until they wake up. That kind of vulnerability is something you do _not_ want as a spy. Frank senses their uneasiness and smiles over at them with confidence, "I'll be there. I promise."

The team and Janus put the pills in their mouths and move into the back of the van as Frank closes it's loading door, locking them inside of the confines of the van. They settle down at the back and within moments the effects of the pills kick in, all of them unconscious within a few moments. No sooner than they fall unconscious, Maddie feels herself being shaken awake by someone.

"Maddie, wake up."

"What's going on?" Maddie looks up at the others, who are hovering over her, through tired eyes, "Where are we?"

Dan holds his hand out to her, which she takes and uses to pull herself up, only to be confused at where she is. They're still in the back of the van! And, now, they're not alone, "Stella? Frank? What's going on? I thought you said that we'd be back in Saint Hearts."

"There's been a change of plans. We have a traitor in our midst." Stella begins to make her way for the back exit of the van, "Follow us, agents."

The agents follow Frank and Stella wordlessly out of the van, Maddie noticing that Janus is still unconscious in the back. She's tempted to move to wake him up but stops. If Frank and Stella didn't want to wake him up, then something's not right. Upon exiting the van Maddie notices that another group of people are already stood in waiting; she and the others instantly move into fighting stances at the sight of who is at the front of the group.

"What is she doing here?!"

"Olga is on our side." Frank explains, "She's a double agent. Part of the Butterfly movement."

Dan still doesn't seem convinced, "How do you know?"

Olga wordlessly pulls up the sleeve of her shirt on the right hand side, revealing a large tattoo on her upper arm. The emblem for the Butterfly movement, "Janus is secretly working for KORPS. We've constructed a set piece to fool Janus into believing that he is back at Saint Hearts when he wakes up. If you will follow me, I will show you."

Olga turns and walks towards the nearby building entrance, which seems to be some kind of large warehouse facility. The agents, Stella and Frank follow Olga inside, where numerous men are finishing up the final pieces of construction on the set piece. It's quite remarkable really. It looks exactly like Saint Hearts. In fact, if she didn't know any better, Maddie would think that it was Saint Hearts. This will _definitely_ fool Janus.

"Okay, so what's our plan?" Tom asks as they stop at the side of the set piece, "How are we doing this?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Maddie quickly interjects, everyone turning to look over at her, "Before we do this, I need to know just one thing...can I change out of this dress? I really, _really_ hate it."

Olga turns to look at Frank and Stella, "And she is a spy, too?"

Frank and Stella provide no comment to Olga's question whilst Maddie sends a glare at the Boldovian agent. She only asked a simple question! What's the harm in that? Olga's probably fine with the dress. Yellow is the colour of cheese, after all.

"Okay." Stella says, taking her usual charge in the situation, "Here's what we're going to do..."

* * *

Maddie pretends to wake up when she feels the others shifting around. That means that Janus is awake, and that means that their plan is ready to go into motion. She just hopes that her mediocre acting skills actually seem convincing. She and the others stand up and look around, Aneisha being the first out of them to speak up, "Something's seems strange."

Olga walks around the corner just as scheduled, Maddie and the others instantly moving into defensive stances for added realism. It seems to convince Janus.

"How did she get here?" Janus sounds frightened.

"She must have followed us from Boldovia."

"Tom, Janus, get out of here." Dan orders, "Protect the Aardvark at all costs."

Tom and Janus run through the nearby doors as the others approach Olga, moving into the fighting formation that they had rehearsed only a few hours prior. Zoe makes the first move, which Olga quickly counteracts by deflecting her punches and pushing her back. She does the same to Aneisha, who attacks from the opposite side a few moments later. Maddie makes the next attack, Olga grabbing her fist and pretending to twist her arm before pushing back, Maddie yelling in pain for added realism. They make the final attack all together and Olga pushes them back once more, all of them tumbling down to the ground over dramatically but landing safely nonetheless.

"We're clear."

The four agents get up from the floor at Olga's statement, smiling over at each other once they're up. They've done their part, now it's up to Tom. They follow Olga out of the section of the set piece that they're in and regroup with Stella and Frank, who are over by a station showing video footage from the inside of the HQ set piece.

"Good work agents." Stella congratulates them as they approach, "We've got him pretty well convinced that this is all real. He's entering 'HQ' right now with Tom."

Maddie moves to look at the monitors, watching as Janus takes the Aardvark from Tom and moves to plug it into one of the fake computers. He plugs it in and then proceeds to try and type away on the keyboard, confusion crossing his face when it doesn't work. He hits at the side of the fake monitor which causes it to break (not that it matters, it's only made out of plastic) whilst Tom smirks over at him. Stella and Frank begin to make their way towards the set piece, Maddie and the others following them, and within a matter of moments one of the walls is moved away, revealing a smirking Tom and a very confused Janus inside of the set piece.

"How was I?"

"Annoyingly good." Aneisha replies.

Maddie nods, "I have to admit, you win on the acting front, Tommy Boy. We're still debating the intelligence front, though."

Tom rolls his eyes but laughs at her statement. Janus looks over at Frank, clearly puzzled by everything that's going on before him, "Frank, what is this?"

"Olga said you were going to betray us, I didn't believe her." Frank explains, "This whole thing was Olga's idea. It was a great deal of work. Every detail had to be perfect for the ruse to work. You had to believe you really were back at St Heart's."

Zoe takes over the explanation from Frank, "If Olga was wrong, you wouldn't plug in the Aardvark. If Olga was right, you would. Creating a replica of St Heart's was the only way of finding out without running the risk of the Aardvark being plugged into the real MI9 network."

"Since you woke up, everything has been an illusion. An elaborate trick. You never left Boldovia." Maddie finishes, a victorious smirk growing on her face as she talks.

"Why, Janus?" Frank's voice is full of hurt that he's clearly trying to hide, "We were friends."

"You are the past, Frank. KORPS is the future."

"Your only future is in MI9 prison."

Zoe touches a device to the side of Janus' neck, sending him to sleep instantly, "He lived up to his namesake, two-faced god."

Maddie turns away from the others and looks back at Frank, who is still very visibly hurt. He doesn't even make eye contact with anyone else, instead turning and walking away from everyone else. Maddie watches as Aneisha makes a move to go after him, only to be stopped by Stella. She's half tempted to go after Frank herself, but she trusts Stella's judgement in stopping anyone from going after him. She has known him for a lot longer after all. Sadly, losing people that you thought you could trust is a common occurrence in the life of a spy. It just happens.

"Okay. I am going to change out of this hideous dress and then proceed to burn it." Maddie begins to make her way out of the set piece, glancing back at Tom as she goes, "We're still having that debate about who's smarter later, just so you know."

"I'm gonna win!"

"Yeah?" Maddie scoffs, "Good luck with that!"


	11. The Hive Part 1

_"Okay. I am going to change out of this hideous dress and then proceed to burn it." Maddie begins to make her way out of the set piece, glancing back at Tom as she goes, "We're still having that debate about who's smarter later, just so you know."_

 _"I'm gonna win!"_

 _"Yeah?" Maddie scoffs, "Good luck with that!"_

* * *

"Hey, Neish." Maddie says, catching up with Aneisha as she approaches the school gate, "How was your weekend?"

"I had to go and visit my auntie."

"I'm assuming that since you used the word 'had', you didn't want to go and visit your auntie." Maddie says, taking another sip of her drink and gagging slightly in disgust, "Ugh! Believe me, my weekend wasn't much better. I was training for most of the weekend."

"Why were you training? You're already in good shape."

Maddie shrugs, "There's always room for improvement. That's why I'm staying away from any other canned or bottled drinks and I'm sticking with healthy smoothies. This one's kale, pineapple and almond milk...and it is disgusting!"

"Why are you still drinking it if you don't like it?"

"I don't know." Maddie looks down at the bottle and shrugs, "I'm kinda just used to the taste at this point. It's still gross, but I've kind of adapted to drinking it. Like how cacti have adapted to surviving in hot deserts."

Aneisha laughs but doesn't push the matter any further, the two of them walking through the front gate and into the school grounds. They make their way through the groups of students, most of whom are flaunting brightly coloured wristbands, and over to Tom, who is wearing a wristband of his own.

"What's with the new wristbands?"

"Didn't you guys see the new Pookie Plumber film?" Both of them shake their heads in response to his question, "They were giving them away at the cinema."

"Some of us had to visit our aunties."

Maddie nods, "And some of us were training all weekend."

"Oh, dear, don't think I can talk to you guys any more!" Tom scoffs, turning away from the girls and back to a group of students who also have the wristbands.

Maddie looks over to Aneisha, who appears to be quite hurt at Tom's dismissal, and pulls her away from Tom and his group, "Don't listen to him, okay? These wristbands are just a fad. No one will care about them by lunchtime."

"I guess you're right." Aneisha nods, but she doesn't seem convinced. Before Maddie can ask her about it, she changes the subject, "What lesson have you got first?"

Maddie pulls out her timetable from her pocket, groaning at the sight of what lesson she has first. Geography! Why does it have to be Geography? It's not that she's not smart enough for the subject, she definitely is, it's just that the subject bores her. She looks back to Aneisha after she's pocketed her timetable, "I've got Geography. Do you reckon Frank'll let me sit down in HQ until first period is over?"

"Not a chance."

"Great." Maddie says sarcastically, "That's just great."

* * *

"Neish!" Maddie jogs up to Aneisha, who is currently waiting at the back of the food line in the canteen, "Mind if I join you?"

"Go ahead." Aneisha smiles, "So, how was Geography?"

"Awful! That's the reason I couldn't come sit with you guys at break. My teacher thought that I wasn't paying attention in the lesson and held me back at break. I mean, I wasn't paying attention, but I understand what's going on." Maddie and Aneisha take a couple of steps forward as the line progresses, "Anyhow, what did I miss at break? Anything exciting?"

"Jimmy Jubbly showed up."

Maddie's eyes go wide, "The Jimmy Jubbly? As in the guy who's practically a celebrity?"

"That's the guy."

"That's awesome! I wonder why he'd come here though, of all places." Maddie says. Aneisha shrugs but doesn't offer much else in response, and the two of them chat quietly amongst themselves as they collect their food from the canteen workers.

Once they have their food trays they move to sit at the table in the middle of the canteen, where the others are sat, only for the only available seat to be taken by Byron. Maddie doesn't really mind it, they can just sit somewhere else after all, but this seems to really annoy Aneisha, "Oi! I was going to sit there!"

"Sorry." Tom smirks, "Only people with Pookie Plumber wristbands are allowed at this table."

Okay. That irks Maddie. You can't exclude people over something as ridiculous as wristbands, "You can't do that, Tom. I mean, they're plastic wristbands. It's hardly the Crown Jewels or anything. You're being ridiculous."

Aneisha reaches for one of Dan's chip, but he swats her hands away instantly and motions to his wristband, "Ho-oh-oh! Sorry - no band, no chip."

"Dan! Come on!" Maddie glares over at her brother, "That's the stupidest thing you've ever said!"

"The stupid thing is that you don't have a wristband."

"Alright, that's it!"

Maddie reaches over to Zoe's plate and pulls a chip from it, tossing it right at her brother. He dodges it, which causes it to hit Melissa on the back of her head. Melissa turns around, clearly not pleased that she's been hit, "Ouch! What was that for?"

"Sorry!" Maddie shouts apologetically, "I meant to hit Dan instead!"

That doesn't seem to appease Melissa, who throws a chip right back in Maddie's direction. The chip hits Aneisha instead, and that's when all hell breaks loose. Within moments all of the students are throwing their food at anybody they can hit, burgers, chips and pizza slices flying through the air at rapid speeds. Maddie teams up with Aneisha, the two of them throwing food at as many people as they can. Yes, they shouldn't be having a food fight, but they make quite the team during one.

"OI!"

The sound of McNab's booming voice is what stops all of the pandemonium. Everyone who has a chair quickly moves back into it, whilst Maddie moves rapidly to pull any loose fries from her hair. McNab seems to mutter something to the man he is stood beside before he addresses the students, "Children, this is Jimmy Jubbly. He's going to give you some Jubblyade, which is "a refreshing, nutritious drink," apparently."

"Now, who's feeling thirsty?"

Part of Maddie is tempted to run over and grab a bottle of Jubblyade, but two things stop her. One: she promised herself that she wouldn't have any other bottled or canned drinks other than her health drinks and water, no matter how healthy they claim the drinks to be. Two: her communicator is buzzing in her pocket, meaning that she and the others have a mission to get to.

"Mission on, let's go."

* * *

Maddie runs at a steady pace through the facility alongside Aneisha, the others running at a slightly faster pace just ahead of them. Aneisha calls to them to wait up, but they either don't hear or don't listen and continue running at their current pace towards the nearby door, which Dan holds open for Zoe. Zoe smiles warmly over at him in thanks, "Thanks, Dan."

Maddie and Aneisha reach the door moments later as it slams in their faces, Dan and Zoe both already on the other side and heading up the staircase. Aneisha is far from pleased at this and speaks with a bitter sarcastic tone, "Thanks, Dan."

"Don't worry about it." Maddie sighs as she opens the door, "Those two are in their own world half the time. The best thing to do is to just let it happen."

The two of them run through the door and catch up to Dan and Zoe, the former turning to the two of them to give his orders, "Aneisha and Maddie, you check out this floor. Zoe, you and I will take upstairs."

"Sure."

The two of them continue heading up the stairs, leaving Maddie and Aneisha behind without another word. Aneisha speaks up first once again, her voice even more sarcastic than before, "You and I take upstairs. Sure!"

"They are quite sickening, aren't they?" Maddie nods back down towards where they came, "Come on, let's go check out the floor. We might find something."

The two of them turn around and run back down the stairs, running back through the door and continuing down the corridor in the opposite direction from where they came. They find nothing out of the ordinary as they head down the corridor, but pause at the sight of a door at the end of another small corridor. They walk down to the door and are surprised to find it unlocked, but they walk inside anyway to find a dimly lit and unoccupied room.

"Are you guys okay?" Tom asks over the communicator.

"We're fine, Tom." Aneisha replies, flashing her torch down at the floor, "Is that a rat?"

"A rat?!" Maddie screams, quickly moving to hide behind Aneisha, "Where?!"

The rats scuttle off; Maddie can hear Tom laughing down the communicator, "I know that we should be acting seriously, but your reaction was priceless!"

"Tom, you are _so_ dead when I get back to HQ!"

"That's weird." Maddie hears Aneisha's voice coming from the other side of the room, where she is looking closely at numerous vials of some kind of red liquid, "I think I've got something."

"I'll go and get the others. They need to see this." Maddie begins to make her way for the door, being cautious not to step near any rats as she goes, "I'll be back in a second, okay, Neish?"

Aneisha doesn't respond, but Maddie only assumes it's because she's too busy examining the red vials, so she brushes past it. She walks back through the door and back down the corridor. As she walks around the corner she notices that Dan and Zoe are coming back through the door to the stairwell and she quickly calls them over, "Dan! Zoe! Aneisha thinks that she's found something!"

Dan and Zoe jog over to Maddie, the latter the first to ask her questions, "What's she found?"

Maddie opens her mouth to respond to Zoe's question when she hears a loud explosion come from where she just came and freezes, a feeling of dread rising in her chest. Aneisha's still over there! Without even really realising it she breaks off into a run and sprints back the way she came, stopping abruptly when she finds red liquid all over the floor and walls. Zoe and Dan run up behind her with puzzled expressions on her face, and Maddie's about to run into the room to try and find Aneisha when the girl in question stumbles through the door, coughing fiercely as her clothes squelch as she walks. She's completely soaked in the red liquid.

"You OK?"

"I feel sick." Aneisha replies, letting out a loud burp a few moments later, "Sorry."

Maddie carefully steps through the liquid and moves towards Aneisha, "We need to get you back to HQ if you feel sick. Come on."

* * *

"Sorry I can't keep anything down, Frank."

Maddie sits at the centre table opposite to Frank and Aneisha, the latter finishing up being medically assessed by the former. There's something majorly significant that's out of the ordinary, but Aneisha hasn't been able to eat anything since she swallowed the red liquid. Frank hasn't been able to find out why though, not just yet.

"Apart from stale bread."

"It seems, if that's the only side effect, it's likely to be temporary but as a precaution, I'm taking you off active duty." Frank says.

"That's not..."

Aneisha's protests are cut off by Stella, who contacts the team via video call and gets right to business, "Do we know what KORPS were up to in there?"

"I'm still running tests on the stuff Aneisha swallowed."

"Thank heavens for the boy genius." Tom turns to the group with a smug grin on his face, placing a spinning hamster wheel on the middle of the table, "I've figured out the source of the original audio wave."

"A hamster wheel?"

Tom nods, "But not one, thousands of them all turning at once."

"There were a lot of cages in that room, but I don't think there were thousands of them." Maddie says, "But I mean, it was dark in that room, so it could be possible."

Zoe shakes her head, "That's impossible, even with that many hamster wheels. To generate a signal like the one you detected would require all the mice to work together in perfect sync."

"Which is more than can be said for you four." Stella says sternly, "You're supposed to be a team, what happened in there?"

Aneisha glances over at Dan and Zoe, "Romeo and Juliet went off and left me."

"Hey!" Maddie shouts, "I was there, you know!"

Aneisha looks over at Maddie apologetically before turning back to Stella, who still looks far from pleased, "And _you_ were supposed to wait for a backup."

"Once again, I was there!" Maddie scoffs, "Do I even exist anymore?!"

"You went to find the others and let Aneisha on her own, agent! That decision was a severe error in judgement!" Stella scolds, the harsh tone in her voice making Maddie quickly become silent, "That was stupid and reckless. You got away with it this time, but next time you might not be so lucky. I'm very disapp

ointed. _You_ are MI9 agents, I expect more from you."

The video call cuts off and leaves the room in complete and utter silence, all of the agents too shocked by Stella's rant to say anything. Maddie's tempted to try and crack a joke to lighten the mood, but by the looks on everyone's faces she knows that now is not the right time. She also knows that something has to change - they need to work better as a team.

* * *

Maddie walks down the school corridor with the intention on heading down to HQ when she finds Aneisha walking towards her, a pale and distant look on her face. Maddie looks back at her with concern as she approaches, "What's up with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Aneisha shakes her head, "Not a ghost, but you're not all that far off."

"What's going on, Neish?"

"Everyone's been acting all off. Zoe's hanging out with Melissa, Tom's socialising and Dan's fixing his tie to how it's supposed to look."

"Okay. I know my brother, and I know that he'd never do that." Maddie replies, "Where are they?"

"I think they were heading towards the art room."

Maddie nods and begins to make her way towards the art room alongside Aneisha, the two of them reaching the room in a matter of minutes thanks to the uncrowded and silent corridors. Upon walking in, they find that all of the students are stood in front of their own individual canvas', painting away silently and calmly.

Hello, Aneisha." All of the students say in unison, speaking in monotone, robotic voices, "Hello, Maddie."

Maddie and Aneisha wave awkwardly back at the students, who turn straight back to their canvas' and continue painting. Maddie makes her way straight for her brother, pulling away at the front of his tie and making it loose like usual, "See, that looks normal."

Dan straightens up his tie and fixes it back to what it was before, looking back at Maddie with a calm smile, "Thank you, I like it this way."

Maddie glances back at Aneisha, who simply shrugs back as she moves to try and talk to Tom. Maddie moves to stand in front of her brother, blocking him from his canvas, and waves a hand in front of his face in an attempt to get his full attention, "Dan, what's going on? You were fine this morning before Mum drove us to school. What happened to you?"

"Nothing, Madison. I'm just fine."

Maddie freezes at his statement. Dan _never_ calls her Madison. Never. He knows that she can't stand being called Madison; he's called her Maddie for as long as she can remember. It's as if he's been abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone. Whatever the case, Maddie knows one thing for sure: that's not her brother.

Maddie backs away from the canvas and walks towards the door, Aneisha moving over from the other side of the room to join her moments later. They both seem to be thinking the exact same thing, but Aneisha is the one who voices it first, "We should go and talk to Frank about this."

Maddie nods back and follows Aneisha out of the art room, the two of them walking back through the silent corridors and towards the broom cupboard. They reach the entrance to HQ and Maddie scans them in, the two of them moving inside of the cramped cupboard and deep underground into HQ. When they walk inside they find Frank kneeling down at the centre table, studying a torn up rat cage with vivid interest, "What do you notice about this?"

"It's been torn to bits."

"Which is oddly not the strangest thing we've seen today." Maddie scoffs as they move to stand beside Frank, "Dan, Tom and Zoe are acting really weird."

"How do you mean?" Frank asks, drawing his attention away from the battered cage and towards the two girls instead.

"Zoe's suddenly best pals with Melissa, Dan's being all neat and tidy and Tom is actually engaging with other kids for once."

"Plus, Dan called me Madison." Frank still looks confused at Maddie's statement, so she elaborates further, "He never calls me Madison! He knows that I can't stand it! Even when we argue, he doesn't call me Madison. It's just one of those lines that you don't cross."

"It sounds like they've taken on board what Stella's said." Frank says as he begins to walk away from the two girls, "Maybe you two should too."

Maddie turns to Aneisha once Frank is out of earshot, "Trust me, I know my brother, and that guy upstairs isn't him. It's not even a small fraction of who he is...like, I'm talking not even a dystopian future version of him."

"You're right. Something's going on around here." Aneisha sighs, "I just don't know what."

"Which is why we investigate."


	12. The Hive Part 2

_Maddie turns to Aneisha once Frank is out of earshot, "Trust me, I know my brother, and that guy upstairs isn't him. It's not even a small fraction of who he is...like, I'm talking not even a dystopian future version of him."_

 _"You're right. Something's going on around here." Aneisha sighs, "I just don't know what."_

 _"Which is why we investigate."_

* * *

"Did you get it?"

Maddie turns towards Aneisha as she walks into HQ, holding a piece of material with a small spot of blood on it. The two of them came to an agreement yesterday that they should try and see if there's any abnormalities in the blood of those who are acting strange, as it could all potentially be down to a virus of some kind.

"I've got it."

Aneisha places the material under the scanner, which is located at the desk where Maddie is sat, as Maddie begins to run scans on the blood on the material. As the scan runs she turns and talks to Aneisha, "How was it up there?"

"Quiet. Nobody said a word at lunch." Aneisha replies, "I can see why you wanted to spend the entire morning down here."

Maddie sighs, "I'm sorry that I wasn't up there with you, but last night at home with Dan kind of drove me a bit insane. I'm so used to having a bit of chaos in my life, but with Dan being all quiet I've lost all of that." Maddie lets out a small laugh, "To be honest, I never thought that I'd miss it."

"Hopefully you won't have to miss it for much longer."

The computer beeps, signalling that the scan is complete, and the two girls turn back to the screen to see the results, "No virus in the blood."

"Surely that's not possible." Aneisha looks over at Maddie, "If it's not a virus in the blood, then what could it be?"

"I don't know. I mean, Tom has an IQ of 150, and I'm not sure if he could figure this out if he was down here."

"What's your IQ then?"

"148." Maddie replies, Aneisha's eyes going wide at her response, "What? IQ tests are mostly down to problem solving, which was part of the reason why I was chosen to be an agent. They wouldn't have chosen me if I had an IQ of 20. Besides, those two points really do make a difference...but don't let Tom know I said that. He'll never let me live it down."

Maddie and Aneisha turn around as they hear the lift doors open, the others walking through the door with the same blank expressions on their faces as earlier. Aneisha looks at them with confusion, "What are you guys doing here?"

"How are you feeling, Aneisha?" Dan turns to look over at Maddie, "And you, Madison?"

"Will you quit calling me Madison?!" Maddie glares over at her brother, or, at least the person who appears to be her brother, "You know that I hate it!"

Stella suddenly appears on the monitor and addresses the girls, "Is everything okay, girls?"

"What's going on?"

"Your teammates are worried about you two." Stella replies, "You guys just don't seem yourselves."

"You're kidding, right? They're the ones who are acting strange!" Maddie walks over to Dan and points an accusing finger at him, " _This_ is not my brother!"

"What on earth do you mean, Madison?" Dan says in a monotone voice, "We just want you to know we're here for you. Both of you."

"This is nuts!"

Maddie silently agrees with Aneisha's statement and promptly follows the other girl as she makes her way for the lift, the others staring at them with strained smiles as they go. As the lift draws to a close and shoots back upstairs, Maddie looks over at Aneisha with a sigh, "So, what's our plan now?"

"I really don't know."

* * *

"Neish! I've got it!"

Maddie sprints over to Aneisha, who is stood alone in the otherwise vacant corridor, as the other girl turns towards her in confusion, "You've got what? What's going on?"

"Last night, I was thinking about everything that's going on. All of the students but us have been effected by whatever this is, right?" Aneisha nods in response to Maddie's question, prompting Maddie to continue further, "So, that means that something must be different about the two of us in order for it not to effect us. All we have to do is figure out what that difference is, and-."

"And we should be able to figure out what's different with everybody else."

"Exactly!"

Aneisha smiles widely, "Maddie, you're a genius!"

"Be sure to mention that when we get Tom and the others back." Maddie says with a confident smirk, beginning to walk down the corridor towards where the broom cupboard is located, "Come on, let's go and run some tests down in HQ."

The two of them do just that. They head down into HQ and immediately walk to the computer station, Aneisha logging in and requesting full body scans of both herself and Maddie, "Okay, it's going to take a few minutes to analyse the data."

Maddie nods and moves to sit in a chair, a slightly dejected look on her face. It doesn't take long for Aneisha to notice the expression on the girls face, something which she quickly brings light to, "What's wrong, Maddie?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

"No, come on, tell me." Aneisha replies, "What's on your mind?"

"I know I was the one who gave the suggestion for what we can try to do to figure this all out, but what if it doesn't work? What if Dan, Zoe, Tom, all those other kids; what if they're stuck like this forever? Like zombies."

"Hey, it's going to work." Aneisha puts a reassuring hand on Maddie's shoulder, "And when we get the others back, we'll let them know how funny and odd they were acting. You can even get Dan back for calling you Madison."

Maddie smiles, "Yeah, I am _so_ getting him back for that. Zombified or not, he should know that he can't call me Madison."

The computer beeps and the two girls turn to look at the data, Aneisha being the first to finish reading through it, "Everything normal, apart from my food allergy."

"And I'm completely normal too." Maddie reaches into her bag, which she's stored under the desk, and pulls out a water bottle, "I mean, I've basically been living off of these stupid smoothies, but other than that I've been acting completely normal all week."

"And I've been eating stale bread all week."

Maddie sighs and leans back in her chair, looking across the room as she thinks. If both of them are completely normal and there are no signs of any virus in the blood of those effected, then what on Earth is going on? None of it makes any sense!

"Jubblyade!"

"What?"

Aneisha crosses the room and reaches down into the bin, pulling out a bottle of Jubblyade with just a small amount of the fluid left inside of it. One of the others must've put it in there earlier. Aneisha moves back over by the main computer and takes a small sample of the liquid from the bottle, placing it under the scanner and starting the analyser, "Compare this to the stuff I swallowed from the explosion."

"Neish, what are you doing?"

The data comes through and Aneisha begins to explain what's going on, "The gloop in the warehouse is very similar to Jubblyade, but massively concentrated. So for Jubblyade to work, it's got to be diluted, otherwise the body's defences reject it."

"Much like how your antibodies flared up when you swallowed all of that gloop from the warehouse. The gloop was simply a stronger version of Jubblyade!" Maddie quickly rises out of her chair and crosses the room, grabbing the small hamster wheel that Tom had shown them a few days prior and placing it on the desk, "Tom said that the source of original audio wave in the warehouse came from thousands of hamster wheels turning at once."

"Right." Aneisha nods, "And then Zoe said that in order for that to be true, all of the rats would have to be moving in perfect sync."

"Precisely. What if that red gloop was being fed to all of those rats? Rats have different immune systems to us, meaning that they react differently to different substances. The red gloop that you swallowed likely doesn't effect them in the same way as it effects humans, meaning-."

"Meaning that those rats would've been under the influence of Jubblyade and would've been working in perfect sync like robots, much like all of the other students in the school!"

Maddie smirks with pride, "Exactly!"

"There's still one thing that I don't understand." Aneisha says, "Why haven't you been effected? I understand why I haven't been, but why haven't you?"

"Like I said, I've been drinking nothing but water and those horrible healthy smoothies all week. I haven't even touched a bottle of Jubblyade. I haven't been effected because I haven't swallowed any of the stuff myself."

Aneisha nods, "So, now that we know what's causing all of this..."

"We put a stop to it."

* * *

Maddie and Aneisha sneak around the corridor as the zombified students march towards the gym in a straight line, their arms straight at their sides and their faces lacking any expression. The two of them quickly move to join the back of this single file line, doing their best to look robotic like the rest of the students.

"Oh no!" Maddie pauses when she hears Aneisha's sudden outburst. She turns to face the other girl, who is looking at the space in front of her with wide eyes, "They've seen us!"

Maddie quickly turns back around again and sees that Dan, Zoe and Tom are marching towards them at quite a rapid pace. Maddie turns back to Aneisha and points in the other direction from where the others are coming from, "Go! Go! Go!"

The two of them run down the corridor at a fast enough pace that they can get away swiftly, but slow enough as to not attract the attention of the other zombified students. They manage to evade their zombified friends by quickly turning the corner and ducking into a classroom, the two of them letting out sighs of relief when they see their friends walk right on past the classroom door none the wiser. Once they know that it's safe they look around the classroom and instantly notice the cameraman on the other side of the room; they make their way over to the cameraman and find none other than Jimmy Jubbly cowering behind an overturned table.

"Please! No! Don't hurt me!"

"We're not one of them." Aneisha reassures him before going right into asking the questions that they desperately need answers to, "Look, what happened? Your experiment went wrong? Drones turned on their master? What?"

"I-It wasn't meant to be l-like this!" Jimmy stutters, "She...She violated production of Jubblyade and she somehow tampered with the recipe!"

"Who's she?"

"The Education Minister!"

"Listen, Jimmy, those kids out there, they're our friends. One of them's even my brother. We, can't lose them." Maddie says determinedly, "Surely there's an antidote to Jubblyade?

"I'm not a scientist."

Aneisha is quick to contradict him, "No, but you're a chef."

"I'm a chef. I'm a...I'm a celebrity chef!" A smile begins to grow on Jimmy's face, "You know what? I reckon I could rustle something up and detox those kids good and proper!"

"I know just the place."

"Okay, Neish, you go with Jimmy to make the antidote." Maddie says, getting up and beginning to make her way for the door, "I'm going to go to the gym."

"You can't go alone! Everyone was heading there!"

"Exactly. Look, Neish, the Education Minister is likely controlling all of the students. Why? Well, that we don't know. But if all of the students are heading to the gym, that's likely where she is...and that also means that she's likely about to do something bad." Maddie says, "If she does try something, somebody needs to stall her long enough for you to get the antidote."

"What would Frank say about this plan? Or Dan?" Aneisha sighs, "You know for a fact that Dan would _never_ let you do this."

"Well, Dan can object to my plans when he's not zombified." Maddie says. Aneisha still looks unsure, so Maddie gives her a confident smile, "I've got this. Trust me."

Aneisha nods back before turning back to Jimmy, beginning to tell him her plan about where they're going to go. Maddie doesn't hang around long enough to hear the whole plan, as she promptly walks out of the classroom and begins to make her way down the empty corridor and towards the gym. She reaches her destination within a couple of minutes, but she stops short when she sees the large crowd of students stood in perfect formation in the gym, a woman with dark hair and two muscly men stood on a small stage in front of them. Maddie also notices the two large banners that have been put up, an emblem with the letter 'K' in the middle of them both. She recognises that emblem, but that's not a good thing.

"Drink your KORPSade, children." The woman says, all of the students drinking from their own individual bottles simultaneously, "Now you, along with all the other children in the country, are of one mind. Your mission is simple and will come naturally - create chaos. Create the ultimate destruction!"

Maddie knows what's about to come: chaos. She's got to intervene before all hell breaks loose. She draws in a deep breath before pushing the doors wide open, stepping inside of the gym with as much confidence as she can muster, "Hey, lady! You missed a kid!"

The dark haired woman looks at Maddie from across the gym, and a look in her eyes that one would be short to call murderous stares back at the girl. Maddie doesn't freeze though, and instead stares back at the woman with the same intensity and resolve. The woman is the first to speak, "How have you not been infected?!"

"That doesn't matter! What does is that you work for KORPS!" Maddie snipes back, and as she yells she remembers exactly who the woman, "You're the Crime Minister! You don't just work for KORPS, you practically run it!"

"You're an MI9 agent!" The Crime Minister directs her attention towards the army of zombified students, "Destroy her! Bring chaos!"

"CHAOS! CHAOS! CHAOS!"

The students turn around and begin to advance towards Maddie, chanting in unison as they approach. Maddie moves into a defensive stance as they get closer, but she knows that she has to be careful in how she fends them off. She doesn't want to hurt any of them. The only option she really has is to push them away when they lunge for her, but even then she still has to be careful in how she moves them away.

Her panic grows when she sees who's at the front of the crowd, well, to be more precise, the three people who are at the front of the crowd. Dan is at the front and centre whilst Tom and Zoe are stood slightly behind them, even Tom looking quite threatening and _very_ unlike himself.

Maddie lowers her guard slightly and directs her attention to her brother, speaking with a steady voice in an attempt to mask her fear, "Dan. Dan, it's me, Maddie. Your sister. Not Madison, remember? It's Maddie. You know that, Dan. You know that I hate it when you call me Madison. You _never_ say it. That's how I know that this zombified version of you, _isn't_ you."

"CHAOS! CHAOS! CHAOS!"

"Dan! Dan, listen to me!" Maddie tries to yell over the noise of the student's chants, but it's not doing much. She just hopes that he can hear it, "If even a small part of my brother is left in there, I know that you won't hurt me! It doesn't matter that you're part of this hive mind or whatever, you _won't_ hurt me! Nor will Tom or Zoe! You guys won't hurt me!"

Dan seems to stop for a few moments and Maddie thinks that she's got through to him, but he soon begins to march forwards again along with all of the other students, chanting loudly and angrily as he goes.

"CHAOS! CHAOS! CHAOS!"

"Maddie!"

Maddie quickly turns her head towards the gym door, where Aneisha and Jimmy are walking in with a tray of what appear to be pies and water guns. Aneisha tosses Maddie one of the water guns, which she catches easily and turns back towards the approaching students. She doesn't have to ask what the water gun's for; she already knows, which is why she instantly begins firing it at the nearest students to her.

"Get your Jubblyade antidote here!"

Jimmy begins to toss the antidote pies at the students as Maddie and Aneisha fire the liquid at them, trying to aim the shots for the students faces so they swallow the antidote. Maddie aims her shots for Dan whilst Jimmy tosses pies at Zoe and Tom, the two of them moving to help them out when they are back to being themselves.

"Dan?"

"Maddie? What's going on?"

A broad smile comes to Maddie's face. Her brother's back, "No time to explain! Grab some pies and start throwing! Go! Go! Go!"

Dan listens to her order and moves to stand with the others, beginning to toss pies at the still large crowd of rioting students. With the added amount of people detoxing the students, before they know it all of the students are back to normal. Confused, albeit, but normal all the same. Once the students have begun to come back to their senses, Maddie watches with a small smile as Zoe approaches the Crime Minister, a pie in her right hand, which she tosses right at the woman's face. It hits her and she yells in a rage, quickly wiping the pie from her face and turning to the men at her sides.

"Let's get out of this madhouse!"

The Crime Minister and her lackeys turn around and walk out of the fire exit of the gym. McNab begins to yell at the students (Maddie doesn't really know when he got here, but he's now at the front entrance to the gym with Frank and Mr Flatley), but Maddie doesn't stick around long enough to hear exactly what she's saying. She pushes her way through the crowd of students and to the fire exit of the gym, quickly running through the doors and after the Crime Minister. She can't let her get away.

"Hey! Pie face!"

The Crime Minister turns around from where she is stood not too far from Maddie. They're out by the back of the school, on the road that leads to the carpark. It's where they bring in all of the food that they use in the canteen.

"What do you want, you little brat?!"

Maddie moves into a defensive stance, "I want you to stop right there and come with me...and I intend to get exactly what I want."

The Crime Minister scoffs, "Oh, please! Dispose of her, will you?"

The two men begin to advance towards Maddie as the Crime Minister begins to walk off, surprisingly calm in making her escape. Perhaps it's because she thinks that her men will easily beat Maddie. Whilst they're obviously much stronger, Maddie has the speed and size advantage in this case. She's much smaller, meaning that she's far more nimble and can manipulate the situation much easier than they can. To be honest, that's the only thing that actually gives her a chance of making her way out of this.

The first guy comes at her, lunging his large fist right for the side of her face. She knows that there's no way that she can block it, so she instead ducks out of the way of his hit.

That angers him, _a lot_.

He swings for her again as the other guy comes from the opposite side, sending his foot towards her stomach. She jumps back again and just manages to miss most of their attacks, although the end of the second guys foot touches her stomach slightly and knocks her back a bit more. It hurts a bit, but it's nothing that will stop her anytime soon.

"Stop moving, you little brat!"

Maddie knows that she can't keep avoiding their attacks forever. Yes, she has quite a fair amount of stamina, but she can't move around like this for more than a few minutes. She has to take them down; she doesn't possess as near as much strength as they do. She's got to use their own strength against them.

And that's exactly what she does.

They throw their punches and kicks at her, but this time instead of dodging them, she uses the combined forces of her own strength and the strength of their attacks to knock the men down to the ground, the action briefly immobilising the two men.

Maddie takes her chance and runs in the direction that the Crime Minister went: towards the car park. It makes sense; there's probably a car waiting there so she can make her escape. Maddie just hopes that the lady kept her slow pace all the way to her destination, otherwise she doesn't stand a chance of catching up to her.

Her plans fall short when she reaches the car park as a black van drives off, the Crime Minister no doubt inside. Maddie yells in frustration and kicks a nearby stone in her anger, but promptly stops when she hears footsteps coming from behind her.

"Maddie!" Dan, Zoe, Tom and Aneisha run over to her, the former three still covered by the remnants of detoxing liquid and pies, "Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine." Maddie sighs, "The Crime Minister got away. A couple of her guards are back by the fire exit."

"We know. Frank's dealing with them."

Maddie nods in response, trying to conceal her anger at her own actions. If only she was a little bit faster, then perhaps she could've caught the Crime Minister. Dan seems to sense her uneasiness, as he puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and speaks in a kind voice, "Hey, there was nothing you could've done. Not on your own. The Crime Minister likely had other guards waiting nearby. No single agent can handle all of that."

"Right."

"Hey, Maddie." Maddie turns away from Dan and looks over at Aneisha, "Now would be a good time to talk to Dan about the whole name thing."

"Oh, right. Yeah. I almost forgot about that." Maddie turns back to her brother with a smirk and punches her brother's arm, to which he groans and shoots a glare back towards her, "That was for calling me Madison. Zombified or not, you know that I hate it when you do that."

"It wasn't like I had much control of what I was doing!" Dan protests, "You know that I never would've done it if I had control."

Maddie smiles, "I know...but I'm still going to get my revenge."

"You're a menace, Mads."


	13. Old School Part 1

_"Oh, right. Yeah. I almost forgot about that." Maddie turns back to her brother with a smirk and punches her brother's arm, to which he groans and shoots a glare back towards her, "That was for calling me Madison. Zombified or not, you know that I hate it when you do that."_

 _"It wasn't like I had much control of what I was doing!" Dan protests, "You know that I never would've done it if I had control."_

 _Maddie smiles, "I know...but I'm still going to get my revenge."_

 _"You're a menace, Mads."_

* * *

 _"I am Sebastian J Wilberforce, new head of research at MI9. There's one reason we're not winning the war with KORPS - technology. My recently perfected molecular accelerator will change all that. It uses quantum manipulation to accelerate the evolution of the object to whichever time period you desire. The best part is that when I connect this to the MI9 network at our secret facility this afternoon, all of our technology will be upgraded instantly."_

Maddie looks over at Frank as the video cuts out. She and the others are currently stood down in HQ after being called down by Frank, who had quite the interesting video to show them. It's about the upgrading of technology for the organisation, something that Frank had told them needed to be urgently discussed. He still hasn't specified what's so urgent about it. A technology upgrade just seems cool to Maddie.

"Cool. It'll be like getting a new phone."

Maddie nods in agreement, "Yeah, it's cool. But what's so urgent about it? Why do we need to discuss this? I mean, surely it'll just benefit MI9's overall operations."

"Your assumption is likely correct, Maddie, but there's something else behind it all." Frank replies, "The technology will be so advanced, they'll be controlling everything from MI9 HQ."

"So what happens to us?"

Frank sighs, "They're disbanding MI High. You will each be sent back to your old schools, you won't see each other any more, and I'm out of a job. We're on the scrapheap."

"So we pull ourselves right up and out of the scrapheap." Maddie says in a determined voice, "We do something that proves that MI9 needs the MI High project, then they have to keep the program alive."

"By this afternoon?" Maddie looks over at Zoe as she speaks, "What could we possibly do in a matter of hours to prove that we're worth not being shut down?"

"Zoe's right, Maddie. There's not much we can do."

"So, what? We just give up?" Maddie shakes her head, "No! No way! I can't do that. _We_ can't do that! There has to be some way around this!"

"I'm sorry, Maddie, but there isn't."

Maddie groans in frustration and turns away from the others, beginning to make her way for the lift. Dan calls after her as she goes, "Where are you going?"

"To think!" Maddie steps into the lift and turns back to the others, "I'm _going_ to find a way out of this! I'm not going to just let MI High get shut down! Not if I can help it."

* * *

"No...No, that won't work either. No! No! No!" Maddie scribbles out the ideas that she's written down in her notebook, leaving only a few insane ideas left. She's sat in the back of the library alone right now, trying to come up with ways to save the MI High program from closure. She's been sat in the library trying to come up with ideas for an hour now, and she's not got a single logical idea out of the bunch. She slams her head down onto the desk and groans loudly in frustration, "This is hopeless!"

"Real optimistic, Maddie."

Maddie glances up and over to the opposite side of the desk, not entirely surprised when she sees that Tom is sat opposite her. If anyone was to come and find her, it would be either Dan or Tom. Dan because he's her brother, and Tom because the two of them are so alike. In a way, Maddie could say that she relates to Tom more so than she does to Aneisha or Zoe. Not to say that the two girls aren't also her friends, but most of the time they give people their space when they need to think. It's happened before.

"Yeah, well, I would be optimistic if I could come up with one decent idea!"

"Okay, what ideas have you got so far?"

Maddie looks down at her notebook and filters through the available ideas, "Well, the best idea that I've got left over so far is releasing a bunch of sheep in 10 Downing Street and then letting them all out so we look good in front of the PM."

"So, in order to save the MI High program, which is supposed to help stop chaos in the country...you want to cause chaos?"

"Ugh, I don't know how to fix this, Tom!" Maddie groans, "I have no idea how we're going to fix this!"

"Maybe...we don't need to."

Maddie looks at Tom incredulously, "Are you kidding me?! Honestly, Tom, I thought that you of all people would be on my side about this."

"What made you think that?"

"Because we think the same!" Maddie scoffs, "I'm basically the female version of you, except I can do martial arts...and I can do freerunning and parkour, and I'm multilingual. Now that I think about, I'm a cooler version of you. In retrospect, I-."

"Okay! Okay, I get it!" Maddie gives him an apologetic look before he begins talking again, "You're right. On any other occasion, I'd likely agree with you. But in this case, there's not much we can do."

"So, we just don't bother trying?"

Tom sighs, "Look, Maddie. I want to save MI High as much as you do. All of us do. But there are some battles you can't win by fighting them. Sometimes you just have to watch how they play out."

"So, we lay down and die?" Maddie scoffs dismissively. She looks back at Tom and notices the hurt look on his face, quickly giving him an apology in response, "I'm sorry, Tom. I just...I really don't want MI High to shut down."

"I know how you feel...but you never know, perhaps we might get a really good mission today that saves MI High."

At that precise moment Maddie feels a familiar beeping in her pocket, and she does even have to reach into her pocket to know what it is. She nods over at Tom, who smirks back at her as they rise out of their seats, "See, I told you that something would come up."

Maddie rolls her eyes playfully, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, let's get down to HQ."

The two of them walk out of the library, taking their stuff with them, and head for the cupboard door. They regroup with the others outside of the door before heading down into HQ, all of them clearly excited about being called down to HQ. This could be the mission that paints the MI High program in such a good light that could help prevent it from closure. In other words: they can't waste this opportunity.

"And we're back!"

The group walk over to Frank with wide smiles as he cleans out some of the stuff on one of the desks, "So, Frank, what's our mission?"

Dan smirks confidently, "Let me guess, MI9 have realised their mistake."

"And there's a threat to national security that they need us to take out." Zoe adds.

"Our old equipment is useless now, so the only thing that you'll be taking out..." Frank passes a bag full of their old equipment over to Dan, "Is the recycling."

"Tom, get the sheep."

* * *

"You know, as missions go, this one really is a load of rubbish."

Maddie nods in agreement at Tom's statement. She, Tom and Dan are currently stood by a rubbish skip and are tossing the numerous bags of rubbish that Frank has given them into the skip. Zoe and Aneisha are over by another skip and are tossing more bags into that skip to shorten the time it will take for them to complete their mission, if you can even call it that. Frank can call it a mission all he wants, but Maddie sure isn't buying it.

"Enjoy it." Dan says optimistically, "Being a spy's about being resourceful, making the most of things."

"Yeah, but we're not spies any more."

"And you were calling me pessimistic." Maddie mumbles, Tom directing an annoyed look in her direction, "What? I'm just telling the truth!"

"Well, until they sack us, we are. Besides, look at some of this stuff. It's amazing." Dan looks through some of the bags and pulls out a couple of old gadgets, "Retro spypods, magnetic boots. I'll ask Frank if I can keep some of this for my collection."

"You have a collection?"

Dan nods, "Yeah, antique spy stuff."

Tom turns to Maddie and speaks to her in a hushed voice, "He seriously has a collection?"

"Yep." Maddie nods and looks down at some of the old gear, "Besides, Dan's right about some of this stuff. These magnetic boots are likely an early prototype of the magnet pucks that I used to stop the Grandmaster. I reckon that if I can get some more gear, I could probably invent something pretty awesome using some of this stuff."

"Like what?" Dan asks.

Maddie shrugs, "Anything, really. I won't really know unless I have all of the components in front of me. Hey, can I use some of the stuff from your collection?"

"I guess so." Dan points an accusing finger at her, "As long as you promise not to blow any of it up!"

"I promise!" Maddie groans, "Besides, that was only a one time thing."

"I wonder what this one does."

Maddie looks over at Tom and sees that he's holding a compressed water canister. She's about to warn him to put it down when water shoots up out of it and directly at his face, soaking his face and the front of his shirt in the process.

"Compressed water canister!" Dan chuckles, "Classic!"

Tom shoots a pointed look over at Maddie, "Thanks for the warning!"

"I was going to tell you something but it was too late! You'd think that the guy with an IQ of 150 would know not to pick up a compressed water canister and point it at his face!" Maddie reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone, going onto the camera app and pointing it at Tom's face, "Smile for the camera!"

"Delete that!"

"Nope." Maddie shakes her head and smirks at the picture, "I am so sending this to Neish and Zoe!"

As she scrolls through her contacts to send the picture to Zoe and Aneisha, Tom lunges forward and snatches the phone out of her hand. Maddie glares back at him and is about to yell at him to give it back when he throws it into the skip.

"What the hell did you do that for!?"

"Were you going to delete the picture?"

Maddie scoffs, "Obviously not!"

"That's why."

"You are so dead, Tom!" Maddie yells as she lunges for Tom, only to be hold back by Dan, "Let me at him! Let me at him!"

Dan sighs, "Calm down, okay? Just go in and grab it."

"Go in and grab it?" Maddie scoffs as she pulls out of Dan's grip to look up at him, "You want me to dive into the skip and grab it?"

Dan shrugs, "It's either that or Mum gets mad at you for losing your phone."

Maddie groans. She knows that he's right. Her mum will kill her if she comes home without her phone. She looks over at Tom with a sharp glare, "I am _so_ getting you back for this!"

* * *

"My phone reeks now! Plus, some old food got caught up in the headphone jack and the speakers!" Maddie groans, "It's practically useless now! And it's all Tom's fault!"

Dan shrugs as they turn the corner and begin to walk down the next busy school corridor, where the vast majority of the students have their eyes glued to their phone screens, "Well, maybe you shouldn't have taken that photo of him. Then he would've had no reason to throw your phone in the skip in the first place."

"You know that he would've done the exact same thing if the roles were reversed. I was just playing around."

"I know you were, and I get that you meant no harm by it, but I don't think now is the time for playing around, do you?"

Maddie sighs, "I hate it when you're right and I'm wrong. It's incredibly annoying, you know that right?"

Maddie doesn't have to look up at Dan to know that there's a smile on his face. She does look up at him, however, when he speaks up again, "Have you noticed the new caretaker?"

"What about her?"

"Look."

Maddie looks in the direction that Dan is nodding to and sees that the caretaker is further down the corridor, trying to talk to the students as she passes by. However, the students are all too busy looking at their phone screens to pay her a seconds notice. Maddie finds it awfully saddening, "Maybe we should go and talk to her. Make her feel a bit better."

"Follow me."

Maddie listens to her brother and follows him as he walks down the corridor and over to the caretaker, speaking to her in a polite voice, "Hello."

The caretaker turns around and gives them a smile, "Oh, hello, kids."

"How's the new job?"

"Oh, it's something to do, isn't it?" She shrugs, "Nice to have a purpose."

"Yeah. It must be." Maddie notices the sad tone of her brother's voice and puts a comforting hand on his arm, which seems to snap him out of his sad state. He points over at Maddie, "I'm Dan. This is my sister, Maddie."

Maddie sticks her hand out and shakes the caretakers hand, "Nice to meet you."

"Hey guys!"

Maddie and Dan look past the caretaker and over to their friends, who are stood at the end of the hall with Frank. The caretaker smiles warmly at the two of them and points to their friends, "They your friends, are they?"

"Yeah." Dan sighs sadly, "The best."

"What's the matter?"

"We might not be seeing so much of them any more."

"Oh, that's a shame." She says sympathetically, "Are they moving schools or something?"

"Yeah, something like that." Maddie replies, forcing a smile onto her face. If both her and Dan are mopey, then that won't end well. Somebody has to be positive.

"I'm surprised that your eyes aren't glued to your phone screens." The caretaker remarks, "Everyone else in this school seems to be looking at nothing but their phones."

"Oh, my phone's busted."

"How did that happen?"

"My friend tossed it in a rubbish skip." Maddie says, the caretaker's eyes going wide at the statement, "Oh, it was my fault. I was teasing him and it backfired. I can't really expect anything else if I deserve it, can I?"

The caretaker nods, "I suppose not. Still, it is nice to see some young people who aren't using technology. You probably hear this a lot from people that are my age, but I never had a mobile phone as a child and I still had a good life. The young people of today really don't need all of this technology."

"Maybe not, but I doubt you'll change their minds." Dan says. He glances back over at his friends, who are waving him and Maddie over, "We better go. Bye."

Maddie nods to the caretaker as she passes, her and Dan walking over to the others on the other side of the corridor. She gets straight into asking questions, "What's going on?"

"We've got a mission." Zoe replies, "An _actual_ mission, this time around."

"Yes!" Maddie cheers, "Ugh, I can't wait to get back out into the field! So, what's happening then, Frank? Bad guys we've got to take down? Breaking into a secret facility to retrieve stolen technology? What is it?"

"Yes, well, Maddie..." Frank's voice trails off, "About the mission..."

* * *

"Logistical backup?" Maddie spins around in her chair and looks up at Frank, "This is likely the last mission we'll ever have and I get stuck on logistical backup?! Come on, Frank! This is so not fair!"

"Missions aren't like trips to a theme park, Maddie. They're not supposed to be a treat or anything: it's our job to complete them."

"Frank's right, Maddie." Tom says from where he is sat typing away on the computers, "Besides, you are technically a dual agent. It even says so on your agent profile."

"I know that, but...wait, why have you been reading my agent profile? Those are supposed to be private. They have encrypted locks on the MI9 servers and everything."

"Well, they weren't encrypted enough for the Lord of the Locks." Tom smirks.

Maddie's about to snipe something back at him when Frank moves between them, "Will the two of you focus? Several heat signatures are appearing not too far behind the team."

Maddie nods and turns to the computer in front of her, analysing the heat signatures that have been picked up on by the scanners in the facility, "Looks like about ten unidentified personnel."

"About?"

"Well, they're all stood quite close together, Tom!" Maddie replies, "It's kinda hard to tell how many there are when they're all in one cluster."

"They're coming up on a door. I'll lock it when they pass through it."

Maddie watches as Tom does just that, the door closing after a matter of seconds. Maddie breathes a sigh of relief, but quickly becomes panicked again when her brother's voice sounds down the communicator, "Maddie, you guys locked Zoe in there with a bunch of KORPS agents!"

"Okay, we'll fix it!" Maddie ends the communication and hastily turns to Tom, "Zoe's locked in there with the KORPS agents! Tom, you have to unlock the door!"

"Okay, and...I've got it!" Maddie lets out yet another sigh of relief whilst Tom moves to turn on his communicator, "Guys, Sebastian's still in the boiler room. You need to get there fast."

"Stella."

Maddie turns and looks over at Frank upon hearing him speak up, surprised to see Stella on the large monitor at the end of the room. You'd think that she wouldn't even bother calling them now that they're on the scrapheap, "Frank. I've got another priority mission for you and your team."

"I'm glad to hear we're no longer on the scrapheap."

"Well, owing to a turn of events that I'm struggling to understand, the acting Prime Minister is now at St Heart's. There's a report of an assassination plan by the new Shadow Master." Stella explains, "The PM is completely unprotected. You have to get there as quickly as you can."

"Understood." The video call cuts off and Frank turns to face Maddie and Tom, the latter of the two only just turning away from his computer at that moment, "Guys, get the team, Sebastian and the molecular accelerator back here safely. They want all of you upstairs with me protecting the Prime Minister."

"The Prime Minister is here?"

"Apparently so?"

Maddie looks back at Frank in confusion, "But why would the PM be here?"


	14. Old School Part 2

_"Understood." The video call cuts off and Frank turns to face Maddie and Tom, the latter of the two only just turning away from his computer at that moment, "Guys, get the team, Sebastian and the molecular accelerator back here safely. They want all of you upstairs with me protecting the Prime Minister."_

 _"The Prime Minister is here?"_

 _"Apparently so?"_

 _Maddie looks back at Frank in confusion, "But why would the PM be here?"_

* * *

"Hey guys!" Maddie runs down the corridor and over to the others, who are back from the facility with Sebastian and the molecular accelerator in tow, "Good, you guys got Sebastian."

Sebastian lets out a long and rather unnecessary groan, which honestly makes him sound rather immature, "Not another little kid! Where are the other adults around here?!"

"Who are you calling little?!" Maddie snipes back. She points one of her fingers to the side of her head, "I've probably got more going on up here than you do and you're a grown man!"

"Okay, okay! Easy!" Dan grabs Maddie by the shoulders and pulls her to the side, speaking to her in a hushed voice, "I know that he's fairly annoying to deal with, but he's our responsibility."

"Fairly? He's a jerk!"

Dan shrugs, "He only called you little."

"Okay, fine then. He's not a jerk, but he's still patronising! I am _not_ little!"

"Yes, and I know that, but there's no use in trying to convince him that, is there? Especially when he's not going to be our problem for long." Dan says calmly, "Frank sent us a message. He wants us to send him down to HQ alone."

"Why?"

"Mr Flatley's been made the new acting Prime Minister."

"Flatley?!" Maddie gasps, "Frank said that the PM was here, but I just assumed that it was the regular guy."

"Yeah, well, it's not. So we need to get to him and guard him."

Maddie nods and walks back over to the others, turning directly to Sebastian, "HQ isn't that far from here. At the end of the hall, make a left turn and continue down the next corridor. Then make the first right turn after that. The broom cupboard will be down that corridor."

"Right!" Sebastian begins to walk off in the directions that Maddie explains, "There better be another adult waiting there for me."

"You know, if it wasn't for the fact that he's an MI9 researcher, I would've slapped him." Maddie sighs and turns back to the others, "Okay, so, what now?"

"Well, once we get changed, we go and find Mr Flatley."

* * *

"Frank, where is Sebastian?" Maddie asks as she and the others, who are now wearing their appropriate school clothes, run over to Frank in the corridor.

"I thought he was with you."

"You sent us a message, said he had to meet you by the broom cupboard."

Frank shakes his head at Dan's statement, "I didn't send a message."

"Well, if you didn't, who did?"

"I don't know. People have been getting strange calls all day." Frank reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, "One of you should get down to the base."

"I'll go." Dan glances back at the others as he begins to run off, "Look after the PM."

"How did he get elected anyway?" Aneisha asks.

"We don't know, but we think KORPS was involved." Frank replies formally, "Until we find out more, he's the acting PM. We have to look after him."

"Or we could just lock him in a room until this is all sorted out." Everyone gives Maddie incredulous looks at her suggestion, "What?! It works, doesn't it? It'll keep him safe and it'll save us from having to protect a PM who shouldn't even be a PM!"

Aneisha sighs and grabs onto Maddie's arm, beginning to pull her down the corridor and towards Mr Flatley's office, Zoe, Tom and Frank following shortly afterwards. The spies move and sit at the table in the middle of Mr Flatley's office whilst Frank remains just outside of the room, likely to make some calls to MI9 Headquarters.

"Ah, Maddie. What do you think of my new idea of transport?" Maddie turns towards Mr Flatley as he addresses her and forces an interested look onto her face, "Cars that are powered by Morris Dancers."

Maddie honestly thinks that the idea is stupid, not to mention scientifically preposterous, but instead chooses to smile and nod at his idea, "That sound amazing, sir. Truly revolutionary."

Maddie is forced to endure about ten more minutes of Flatley's ridiculous ideas before Aneisha taps her on the arm and motions to the door, where Frank is signalling for them to come over. They get up from their seats and walk over to Frank, Tom quick to jump in with the questions.

"Any word from Dan?"

"Not yet." Frank replies shaking his head, "Stella thinks there's some kind of super spy behind all these strange events. And now something has happened to my spy pod."

"What's going on exactly?"

"I don't know, but I'm guessing it's something to do with that."

Maddie looks over at what Tom is pointing to, which turns out to be the small TV at the side of the room, which is currently playing a news broadcast.

 _"Technology everywhere is winding back to an earlier version of itself with airships in the sky above Heathrow and steam trains clogging up the railways."_

"Something systematically replacing only new technology with old technology. It's like someone got hold of the molecular accelerator and reversed it somehow." Frank says, "That must be why my spy pod turned into an old communicator."

"That's it. I'm going after Dan."

"Whoa, now, hold on a second." Tom interjects, "We don't even really know what's going on. We should step back and assess the situation before we do anything."

"I don't need to assess it to know that something isn't right about all of this. I also don't need to assess it to know that my brother is alone, without backup, whilst all of this is going on. Which is why I'm going to find him." Maddie replies as she begins to make her way down the corridor, "I have a really bad feeling about all of this."

* * *

The first thing that Maddie notices when she steps out of the lift and into HQ is the odd outfit change. It's not her usual spy outfit. It looks as if it's been ripped right out of a movie from the 50's, and she's not the only one who looks this way. The clothes that the others are wearing mirrors this style, and it's incredibly strange.

"How lovely! All together again and ready for action."

Maddie turns towards the source of the familiar voice, shocked at who she finds stood beside her strangely dressed brother, "The caretaker?"

"Guys, Jemima Thursday." Dan motions to the caretaker, well, at least who Maddie _thought_ was the caretaker, "She's amazing. She's turning things back so we can keep our jobs. We can stay together."

"Dan, don't you realise what she's doing? The molecular accelerator isn't just rewinding MI9's technology. It's affecting everything. Imagine a world where medical advances are reversed and people get ill when they don't have to."

"Aneisha's right, Dan." Maddie sighs, "This isn't right and you know it. We can't risk the safety of the entire world for our jobs."

"But, we can all stay together this way." Dan replies, a crestfallen look on his face, "I thought you wanted that, Mads. I thought you all did."

"We do, Dan...but not like this. We have a job to do, a purpose." Maddie sighs, "Our purpose is to save the world. Even if it means we can't save our jobs. If we can't even do the job we still have, we don't deserve to keep doing it."

"Oh, really!" Jemima scoffs, "Noble ideals are all very well, but they don't catch criminals."

Maddie looks to her brother cautiously. She would usually say that, without a shadow of doubt in her mind, Dan would do the right thing immediately. But she fears that his judgement may have been clouded by Jemima.

It turns out, she soon finds out, that she was wrong.

"You know what? They're right." Dan moves to stand beside Maddie and the others, "Shut down the accelerator."

"No! Daniel! You can't!" Jemima yells, "Activate defences!"

As they reach the desk where the molecular accelerator is located the defences activate, causing the lift doors to open up again and reveal a large turbo-powered fan, which seems to be acting more like a vacuum than a fan. Everybody desperately clings to something as the fan begins to take effect and suck various loose items towards it, although Jemima isn't as lucky. She loses her grip and is pulled along the ground, just about managing to grab onto the door of the lift before she is pulled into the fan.

"The molecular accelerator has even affected the security systems!" Tom yells above the noise, "It must have reinstated the old defences from years ago!"

"I'm wearing magnetic boots! Hold on to me!"

Maddie reaches out and grabs hold of Tom, joining the chain of people holding onto Zoe, who is rooted to the ground thanks to her magnetic boots. Maddie grabs onto Dan's hand as he turns to face her, saying that he has got to help save Jemima.

Maddie gives him a stern look, "Dan, don't even think about it!"

Dan doesn't listen to her, instead lowering himself to the ground and stretching out as far as he possibly can towards Jemima. Despite being against his idea, Maddie keeps a strong grip on his hand. She'd be an awful sister if she let go, wouldn't she? Even if she thinks that his plan is ludicrous.

She can't hear much of what he's saying to Jemima due to the fact that he's turned away from her and that the noise from the fan is incredibly loud, but she can definitely hear the last part when he turns back towards her and the others, "Zoe, the hairdryer is a fusion ray! Use the hairdryer!"

A few moments pass until the lift doors close and the fan goes away with it, signalling that Zoe has successfully used the fusion ray on the molecular accelerator. Maddie, amongst the others, lets out a sigh of relief, whilst Dan moves to help Jemima up off of the floor.

"I'm sorry." Jemima sniffles, "All this reminds me of when I was a spy. A good one."

Dan gives her a reassuring smile, "You are. The best. You're the reason I want to be a spy."

"And you are the reason we're still spies. Although what you did today was wrong, if it wasn't for you, we'd be finished."

"They're right, Jemima." Maddie shrugs, "But next time, I'm just going to go with my other plan and release the sheep."

Everybody looks at Maddie quizzically for her statement, to which she can't help but laugh and smile at them all, "Don't even worry about it."

* * *

"The molecular accelerator's circuits have blown. Sebastian doesn't think he can repair it. In fact, he says he's not even going to try. So, we're back in the game."

Maddie smiles as she walks alongside the others out of the front door of the school and into the outer quad. Although everything that Jemima did almost led to catastrophic results, at least it led to one positive outcome. They still have their jobs and nobody got hurt in the long run, so in hindsight the situation could've ended up with everybody being much worse off.

"She's still a hero, no matter what she's done."

Maddie turns and looks over at her brother, who is staring sadly at an old photo of Jemima. She puts a reassuring hand on his arm and smiles up at him, "She's human. It'd be unnatural if she never made any mistakes. Deep down, she only wanted to fight for what's right."

"Maddie's right." Aneisha adds, "And at least all the technology has gone back to normal."

The others begin to walk ahead and Maddie reaches for Dan, pulling him back before he can follow after them. She looks at him sympathetically, "You sure that you're okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah...I'm fine." Dan nods and sighs sadly, "I just...well, part of me thought that she'd change her mind sooner than she did. I'm glad that she did in the end, but it was a bit too close for comfort. She's the one who inspired me to become a spy, after all. I guess I thought that she'd be more...righteous. You know, full of good morals and respect. I guess I was wrong about that."

"Don't feel so guilty about all of it. In fact, don't feel guilty about it at all. It wasn't your fault. And like I said, she's human. We, as a species, are prone to making mistakes. It happens, even to the best of us." Maddie gives him a confident smile, "How about, before Mum makes dinner later, we go through some of your old spy stuff and build something. You know, use all of the old technology to make something new. Jemima was right about some of the old tech. It can actually be rather useful."

Dan smiles warmly at Maddie's suggestion, which instantly brightens up her mood. She's usually not the best at cheering people up, so it's nice when she can make somebody's feel better. Especially if it's her friends or family.

"That sounds great, Mads." Dan replies, "Although, I do have one rule about it all."

"Sure. Hit me with it."

"Don't blow anything up."

Maddie smirks over at her older brother and shrugs innocently, "Hey, I can't make any promises."


	15. The Germinator Part 1

_"How about, before Mum makes dinner later, we go through some of your old spy stuff and build something. You know, use all of the old technology to make something new. Jemima was right about some of the old tech. It can actually be rather useful."_

 _Dan smiles warmly at Maddie's suggestion, which instantly brightens up her mood. She's usually not the best at cheering people up, so it's nice when she can make somebody's feel better. Especially if it's her friends or family._

 _"That sounds great, Mads." Dan replies, "Although, I do have one rule about it all."_

 _"Sure. Hit me with it."_

 _"Don't blow anything up."_

 _Maddie smirks over at her older brother and shrugs innocently, "Hey, I can't make any promises."_

* * *

"I think I've got it."

Tom looks at her skeptically, "You think or you know? Because if this is going to blow up, I'm going to need to take a few steps back."

"It's not going to blow up! The first pair worked out just fine, didn't they?" Maddie responds matter of-factly, "Besides, I'm using your blueprints, so it's technically your fault if anything goes wrong."

Tom groans, "Just test out the glasses already!"

Maddie smirks at his frustration but complies to what he's saying, reaching over and picking up the specs from the table. She puts them on and presses the button at the side to activate them, the activation working successfully. She can see all of the germs in the room.

"I'd guess by that smile on your face that they're working?"

Maddie hi-fives Tom and smirks over at him, "We've got this in the bag."

The two of them are currently in the science lab along with many of the other students who are also taking part in the science fair. Maddie doesn't want to come across as too overconfident, but she and Tom have made a near perfect invention. Tom came up with the blueprints whilst Maddie brought together and constructed all of the parts to get the final product. They've been working through the data they've collected using the prototype pair, and Maddie's just finished making the second, more refined pair. There's not much of a difference between the two pairs, but they've still improved the design in the short time that they've had.

"Tupper! Morgan!" McNab bellows as he walks over with Mr Flatley, clearly displeased to be at the event, "What train wreck of a project are you two working on, then?"

"They're called germ-specs, sir. You can see every germ in the room." Tom explains, "I made the designs and Maddie built them. We've been analysing the data that we've collected using the prototype pair."

"May I?"

Tom quickly hands the prototype pair over to Mr Flatley, who is instantly impressed by what he sees. Tom reaches over to the desk and grabs his laptop, which displays all of the data that they've collected over the last few days, "But get this. In the last week germs have been disappearing like mad."

Mr Flatley appears to be interested in their results, but is soon over this excitement when he sees Dan's project across the room. His project is a sulphuric acid volcano, which is actually rather cool. Poisonous, yes, but cool nonetheless.

Maddie sighs and turns around to talk to Tom, only to find that he's trying to talk to Melissa and her group of friends, "Listen, girls. If you need any help with your science project, I'm more than happy to help you with it."

The girls look at Tom like he's some kind of extraterrestrial before turning away and walking over to Dan, likely to suck up to him in an attempt to win over his affection and attention. Maddie knows for a fact that her brother finds Melissa and her friends annoying, but it's not worth telling them that. It's not like they'll listen to her.

"So I'll see you later then, yeah?"

Maddie puts her germ specs in her blazer and walks over to Tom as the girls reach Dan, giving him a look of sympathy, "He doesn't try to get their attention, you know? To be honest, he can't stand it. It just kind of happens."

Tom nods, but he still doesn't look convinced. Maddie glances across the room and over to Zoe, who is working on her project alongside Aneisha and is looking over at Tom sympathetically too. Maddie shrugs over at Zoe, who looks even more helpless about the situation than her. Maddie's not really sure what to say to Tom, and luckily for her she doesn't have to right at that moment, for she feels the familiar buzzing of her communicator in her pocket.

"Let's go."

The five spies quickly head out of the classroom and make their way to the broom cupboard, Tom moping about the fact that no girls ever want to go out with them as they enter HQ.

"Have you ever actually asked anyone?" Zoe asks as they all step out of the lift, now dressed in their appropriate spy attire.

"Tom? Mr All-Talk-And-No-Action? There's more chance of Frank asking out Stella!" Aneisha scoffs as they reach the centre desk, her eyes going wide when she sees that Frank and Stella are there. Maddie stifles a laugh as Aneisha smiles awkwardly at them, "Hi, Frank. Stella."

"Team, listen up." Frank turns to the monitor and projects an image of a man wearing a ridiculous yellow suit upon it before turning back to the team, "This is Bobby Bleach, inventor of Squirt Squirt Wallop. A scientific genius whose business has shot up from nowhere."

"We don't know where he got his money, but we do know he's recently bought a large amount of extranium, an extra strong metal used for making weapons."

"Your mission's simple." Frank reaches for a small device and extends it out to Dan, "Take this extranium detector and search his factory for evidence. Tom and Maddie, you two stay here on comms."

"Yes!"

"Seriously?! Again!?" Maddie groans, her reaction very different to Tom's about the situation, "I know that I'm technically a dual agent and all, but I'm really not a huge fan of staying around here. Nothing exciting happens!"

"That's not true, Maddie." Aneisha says, "What if you guys run out of biscuits?"

"Frank, tell me we have enough biscuits!" Tom turns to Frank with wide eyes. Frank reaches into one of the cabinets and pulls out a packet of biscuits, passing them over to a smirking Tom, "We're good."

Maddie groans and throws her hands up in the air in exasperation, "I give up!"

* * *

"Maddie, have you seen this?"

Maddie pockets her handheld games console and looks over at Tom, "What is it? I mean, it can't be anything too exciting, since we're stuck here whilst the others get to go on the _real_ mission!"

"Will you quit being so pessimistic and put on your germ specs!" Tom groans, looking over at her from his computer, "Tell me what you see."

Maddie sighs but complies with what he's saying. There's no harm in it. She puts on the specs and switches them on, looking around the fairly vacant school corridor that they two of them are currently stood in, the results that she sees shocking her.

"Where are all the germs? There's hardly any!"

Maddie removes her specs and turns to Tom, only to find that he is holding his communicator up to his ear.

"Hey, the only thing on fire right now is me." Tom turns to his computer and types away for a few moments before pausing, speaking into his communicator once again, "You're in."

"Zoe?"

Tom turns to her and nods, "She just got into Bleach's computer. I got her past the firewall."

Maddie nods. As much as she's annoyed that she's not on the mission, it is relieving to hear that it's going well. When it comes down to it, the most important thing is that the missions are successfully, no matter who's completing them.

"Hi, Tom." Maddie's snapped out of her thoughts when she hears Melissa address Tom; she turns towards Melissa and finds her friends stood by her, all of them looking directly at Tom, "Look, we could do with some help on our project after all. We need to know how to speed up a chemical reaction. "

"Oh, well, that's easy, you just need heat. Heat speeds up any chemical rea..."

"Yeah, that's great...so, hey, Maddie." Melissa turns to Maddie, who pretends to be interested in what she has to say as to not seem rude. She already has a hunch about what she's about to say, "We were wondering if you'd seen your brother? He's always disappearing."

"Funny, that..." Maddie mumbles back, quickly recomposing herself and sending a fake smile over in Melissa's direction, "Sorry, Melissa, I haven't seen him."

Melissa and her friends look disgruntled at her response and quickly sulk off, likely off to stalk the halls in an attempt to find Dan. It's useless, of course, but Maddie doubts that they'll listen if she tells them that.

"I still don't get why they're so obsessed with Dan." Maddie turns to Tom, "I mean, surely they realise that he's only one guy. Even if it did work out for one of them, the other two wouldn't be able to date him, so all three of them pining over him is just delusion."

"If I was you, I'd be preparing yourself."

Maddie looks at him quizzically, "Preparing myself for what?"

"The influx of guys swarming around you like the girls who swarm around Dan." Tom replies with a shrug, "As much as you may not notice it, your brother is very charismatic, and you are too. You guys can make people like you easily, whilst I..."

"Stop being so pessimistic, Tom!"

* * *

"This stuff contains Triple X-1. So strong, they keep it in extranium barrels."

Maddie listens from over where she is sat at the computers alongside Tom as the others inform Frank of what they found at Bleach's factory. Judging on what she's hearing them say, they didn't find much. Zoe remarks how as much as Bleach is a weirdo he doesn't have a weapons factory before the three of them walk back out of HQ, leaving Tom and Maddie alone with Frank.

"Frank." Tom calls Frank over to where they are sat, and Frank reaches that space within a matter of moments to hear what Tom has to say, "The body needs germs. It practises on them, so when a disease comes along - bosh! But get rid of the germs and what happens?"

"People's defence systems get weaker. They'd be defenceless against germs."

"What if Triple X-1 speeds this process up?" Tom reaches across the desk and picks up a bottle of Bleach's Squirt-Squirt Wallop, "MI9 thought Bleach was making weapons. What if this is that weapon?"

Frank looks as if he's going to say something else, but he stops short when his phone buzzes from within his pocket. He briefly glances at it before looking back to Maddie and Tom, beginning to make his way towards the lift as he does, "I've got to go and sort something out, but we can discuss this later, okay?"

Maddie turns to Tom once the lift closes behind Frank, "Even if Bleach is doing what we think he is, we still don't know one thing. Why is he doing it?"

"That's what we need to figure out."

* * *

"Firstly, well done, everybody, I thought all your projects were marvellous."

Tom and Maddie stand amongst the other students in the science lab, eagerly waiting the results of the science fair. Maddie's not particularly fussed about winning, but she wants to for Tom's sake. He could really use a win after the way that Melissa and her cronies treated him.

"The winner of this year's Science Competition is...Daniel Morgan and his sulphur-producing volcano!"

Maddie finds herself clapping along with the other students as her brother steps up to collect his prize. Of course she's proud of her brother for winning and all, but she honestly thought that she and Tom had it in the bag. Perhaps she underestimated the power of sulphur-producing volcanoes.

She watches as Dan steps up to take a picture and Melissa stands alongside him along with her cronies, clearly making Dan feel uncomfortable. Her brother is usually a rather confident guy, but Melissa and her friends have seemingly sucked all of that confidence right out of him, making him look uncomfortable and awkward in front of the camera. Maddie would stick around to try and find some humour in the situation but she notices that Tom is heading for the door to the room, a dismayed expression on his face. Maddie looks to Zoe and Aneisha who are only stood a few metres away and notices the concerned looks on their faces.

She nods over at them reassuringly, "I've got it."

Maddie rushes out of the room and soon catches up with Tom as he turns to the next corridor, not wasting any time in asking him the burning question in her mind, "Are you okay?"

Tom nods, albeit rather unconvincingly, "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You know why, Tom." Maddie sighs, "Look, I'm sure that the next time around you'll-."

Maddie doesn't get the chance to finish her sentence as an abundance of shrieks sound from back in the science lab, effectively cutting her off immediately. The two of them briefly glance at each other before turning around and sprinting back towards the classroom. They stop abruptly outside of the lab when they see everybody screaming and pointing at each other's face, which seem to be covered in red blotches and spots.

"Use your germ specs, quick!"

Maddie reaches into her pocket and pulls out her own specs and places them on her face, both confused and shocked at what she sees through them.

"A new breed of germs?"

Maddie reaches for her glasses and takes them off, reaching back into her pocket and pulling out a small piece of cloth as she pockets her germ specs. It's supposed to be used as an extra blazer pocket, but does anybody really use those? The two of them walk into the room, mouths and noses covered, and make there way over to the rest of their team.

"Don't breathe them in! Cover your mouth and nose, quick! It's the germs, they're coming through the window!"

"It's Bobby Bleach." Maddie adds when they all look completely and utterly confused, "I think he's trying to attack everyone with germs. Tom had a theory about it when you reported back from the mission, and at first I dismissed it, but now it's starting to make sense."

"How? We searched his factory."

Maddie's going to speak up in response to Zoe when Frank begins to jump around and make monkey noises on the other side of the room; soon everybody else in the room, excluding Tom and Maddie, are doing the exact same thing. Maddie and Tom glance over at each other, the two of them saying the same three muffled words in shock,

"Monkeys? Why monkeys?"


End file.
